It was around 10:25 a.m. on Saturday at the R.J. Kennedy Memorial Arena in Cumberland and Roch Leduc, Ottawa paramedic superintendent, was waiting for his wife to arrive when a 20-year-old man collapsed on the playing surface.
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The (game) became all quiet suddenly,” said Leduc. “I saw the individual on the ground and I figured maybe he had tripped or some-thing.”
He said 10 to 12 long seconds went by and still the man wasn’t moving. That’s when his focus became squarely on the downed player. I thought to myself, ‘OK, now get up,’ but he didn’t.”
One of the other players waved for help and Leduc jumped from his seat. As he got closer, it became apparent there was a serious problem.
“When I put him on his back, I noticed he had no pulse, he wasn’t breathing and so I started doing chest compression.”
As he was performing CPR, someone went to the rink attendant, who ran over with the arena’s defibrillator.
I grabbed the package from her, opened it up and placed the pads on the man. We delivered a shock and did CPR for another minute or so. The machine automatically analyzed the situation and delivered a second shock.
We carried on and then he started blinking his eyes and moaning and groaning, so I stopped and checked for a pulse. He was breathing on his own and had a good pulse.”
Leduc said as much as four minutes might have passed before the man breathed again.
It was close.” As if the patient wasn’t already lucky enough to have a paramedic in the arena, Leduc was only there because his wife was running a little late. I was waiting 10 minutes for my wife to arrive, otherwise I wouldn’t have been there at all.”
By the time an advanced care paramedic unit arrived, the man was awake and talking.
He was taken to hospital, where his status was upgraded from life-threatening condition to stable condition.
