Frontenac Neighbours Saving Neighbours cardiac arrest response

FRONTENAC NEWS - As an emergency room physician and researcher into cardiac arrest and resuscitation, Dr. Stephen Brooks of the Kingston Health Sciences Centre and Queen's, is well aware of a rather startling reality faced by patients when they suffer heart attacks.

Southeastern Ontario Academic Medical Organization - Dr. Steven Brooks is an associate professor in Emergency Medicine and cross-appointed to the Department of Public Health Sciences. He is an attending physician at Kingston Health Sciences Centre, where he supervises clinical clerks, observers in medicine, residents in emergency medicine in the Royal College program and the College of Family Physicians program, and off-service residents who are rotating in the Emergency Department (ED) as part of their training in other specialties.

By John Chidley-Hill The Canadian Press - Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest on the field during Monday Night Football may serve as a wake-up call for many Canadians, says a spokesman for the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

“Anyone, anywhere, any age,” said Andrew Lotto, senior manager of the foundation’s resuscitation group, about who may suffer a cardiac arrest. He noted that NHLers like Rich Peverley and Jiri Fischer as well as Danish soccer player Christian Eriksen, among others, have also suffered cardiac arrest mid-game.

Volunteers will be trained to fill gaps in crucial moments until paramedics arrive

If you call an ambulance in Peel region, there's a chance the first person to see you won't be a paramedic at all — thanks to a new volunteer first-responder program meant to save precious seconds in life-threatening situations.

Launched last month in partnership with Sunnybrook Hospital and the Peel Regional Paramedic Service, the volunteer community responder pilot project uses an app to alert trained and specifically equipped volunteers that an emergency is happening nearby.

Paul Snobelen, the community safety specialist with Peel paramedics, told CBC Radio's Here and Now this week that part of the impetus behind the program was a relatively low uptick in the usage of automatic external defibrillators (AED) in the community, even though they're stationed in public places like schools and rec centres.

Some people, even those trained in their usage, were reticent to use them, or they weren't spotting the life-saving devices, he said.

"But we know that individuals in the community are willing to help," Snobelen said. "So what we wanted to do was find a way to connect those who are willing to help to those who need the help, and to provide the equipment to do it."

Here's how the process works: volunteers who are certified in First Aid and CPR go through an onboarding process. Then they're given an AED, a "stop bleed kit," and in some cases an epipen to treat allergic reactions and naloxone, to treat opioid overdoses.

Then they are able to download an app that will send out an alert if the volunteer is near an emergency call. If the volunteer accepts, they could be first on the scene and able to provide first aid, with a paramedic on call to provide guidance through the app.

"It doesn't change anything about how our call criteria works. We're still going to send the fire department, we're still going to have police attend," Snobelen said.

In essence, all of the key pieces of an emergency response still happen the same way. Snobelen said paramedics can generally get to a person's door in six minutes or less — but with the increased development of condos and skyscrapers, they also sometimes need to get up dozens of floors, which adds time in crucial situations.

"With our community responders who are either in the building or close to a building, it helps us address that vertical response time as well," he said.

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Researchers will also study the program to determine how early intervention improves survival rates. When someone in cardiac arrest gets early CPR and defibrillation, Peel paramedics say, their chance of survival can increase by up to 70 per cent.

"So if we can get help to you as quickly as possible, we can make that difference," Snobelen said.

The program is rolling out at a time where Ontario's health-care system is under particular strain due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The City of Toronto reported earlier this year that average unplanned absence rates were hitting more than 10 per cent across its divisions, including its emergency services, as the Omicron wave surged.

Patients in emergency rooms in the province are also waiting record lengths of time to get admitted to hospital..

Snobelen said pressure on the health-care system didn't have any effect on the rollout of the program, as it was planned before the pandemic hit.

"It hasn't really had a bearing on how the deployment takes place," he said.

Anyone interested in volunteering can do so online.

By: Act Foundation via Youtube.

The heavy thud echoed across the gym at Ottawa’s St. Mother Teresa High School. Zach, a Grade 10 student trying out for the basketball team, had collapsed on the floor. That’s when Coach Mike’s lifesaving skills sprang into action.

“My instincts kicked in. It was the [ACT] training,” says Mike. “I asked my Assistant Coach, Yvan, to call 911 and clear students out of the gym,” says Mike. “I assessed Zach and started CPR.”

“Coach told me to get the defibrillator right away” recalls Zach’s friend Malacki. “I ran fast, my friend’s life depended on it. I gave the AED to Coach. He put the pads on Zach and followed the instructions. He knew what to do,” adds Malacki.

Zach underwent open-heart surgery at Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario for a defect unknown since birth.

“I can tell you as a mom, receiving the phone call was nothing short of traumatic. But to hear over and over in the days that followed from paramedics, ER physicians, and the team of cardiologists, that had the coach not responded so quickly performing CPR and using the AED, Zach would not be with us today,” says Stephanie. “We are very, very thankful that Coach Mike knew CPR, and that the school had an AED and the Coach was trained in how to use it. That is what made the difference for Zach.”

The ACT Foundation set up the High School CPR and AED Program at St. Mother Teresa High School in 1998 for CPR and in 2009 for AED. With the support of community partners, ACT donated an AED to St. Mother Teresa and Ottawa high schools in 2009. Looking forward to being cleared to return to the court, Zach’s grateful there was not only an AED at his school but people around him who knew how to save a life. “Most people think only older people get heart attacks, but look at me, I am living proof it can happen to anyone,” he says. And yes, he made the team.

Jean Laroche · CBC News · Posted: Jun 01, 2022 2:53 PM AT | Last Updated: June 1

When Grade 2 student Sofia Gouthro collapsed during gym class in December 2020, a school employee carried her to the office at Mount Edward Elementary School in Dartmouth, N.S.

Vice-principal and Grade 5 teacher Rebecca Stickings knew exactly what to do. The CPR training she first learned as a teenage camp counsellor in Madawaska, Maine, kicked in.

"You just go into autopilot with training and you remember the stuff that's necessary," said Sticking who, with the help of a 911 medical communications officer giving directions, kept Gouthro's blood flowing from her no-longer-beating heart until paramedics arrived.

"They did use a portable AED [automated external defibrillator] that they had on site at that time to revive her," recounted Sticking.

"When she left the school she was breathing and she had a pulse," she said. "We were very, very happy about that."

Richard Lyon MBE is professor and consultant in EM at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and clinical lead for the Medic1 pre-hospital team. In this talk from The Big Sick in Zermatt in 2018 he talks about initiatives taken in Scotland to improve dismal outcomes in OHCA and thoughts on how we can further improve by applying granular audit data to inform our training, by bringing CPR knowledge to the public, and by bringing new and existing technology to the issue.

After a cardiac arrest episode, a 16-year-old Sumner County student-athlete credits the school nurse, trained teachers and an AED with saving his life. News Channel 5 Nashville, TN.

From the Avive Solutions Youtube channel.