First Aid Corps

GEELONG Football Club doctor Geoff Allen has told of surviving his mid-field heart attack at AAMI Stadium of Friday night, revealing he ignored telltale chest pain in the weeks before his potentially fatal seizure.

The super-fit medic, speaking from his ward in Adelaide’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital yesterday, said he’d been “stupid” not to seek treatment after experiencing dull chest pain during the past few weeks which had started radiating into his left arm.

“If people get chest pain, make sure they go and see their doctor, not like the dumb doctor who doesn’t go and see anyone,” Dr Allen, 48, told the Geelong Advertiser.

Dr Allen had run 6km on Friday a few hours before he suffered the heart attack as he oversaw the Cats warm up on AAMI Stadium for the match against the Crows.

“I’d had a little bit of pain but I just thought it was kind of like a muscle I’d pulled in my chest and that it wasn’t heart, which is great for a doctor not to pick up, and on the night I had no pain,” Dr Allen said.

“If I’d been home I really would have got it checked out but then thought I’ll go and get this sorted out on Monday.

“It was just dumb, in retrospect, very stupid and I’m very lucky.”

Dr Allen remained in cardiac care yesterday, active and eating but still connected to two drips and a heart monitor.

His wife Claudia and children Emma, 15, Georgie, 12, and Sam, 10, caught a midnight light plane flight on Friday night to be by his side.

Cardiologists diagnosed blockage of one congenitally narrow artery, inserted a stent to keep it clear and predicted a full recovery.

Dr Allen owes his life to the immediate cardiac resuscitation response of officials including fellow club doctor Chris Bradshaw and paramedics, and to the proximity of a heart defibrillator.

“With that rhythm I was in, without a defibrillator, it rarely reverts without electricity,” Dr Allen said.

“If I’d done it even in the mall or somewhere where there’s no defibrillator, by the time an ambulance gets to you it’s probably going to be too late or by the time it gets to you, your brain’s going to be dead.

“I was zapped within two minutes, which is hopefully why my brain is OK.”

Dr Bradshaw, who had run the six kilometres with Dr Allen during Friday afternoon, said his friend was in a desperate state.

“He didn’t have a pulse, he wasn’t breathing and he was blue,” Dr Bradshaw said.

“Basically he had a full cardiac arrest, he wasn’t in a great way, it was a bit scary.

“All of the players were still around him, it was crazy.”

Dr Bradshaw said he was grateful for having completed a refresher emergency resuscitation response course organised by the Cats about six weeks ago.

Dr. Robert Myerburg said he heard a woman screaming and saw a man on the floor.

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The man had just arrived at Miami International Airport from Paris ,and was standing in the passport line.

When Dr. Myerburg got to him, he didn’t have a pulse. He immediately started CPR and asked a guard for a defibrillator to shock the man’s heart back into rhythm.

There are 30 in terminals across MIA, but, as he found out that day, there were none inside the large and isolated federal security area where international arrivals are first processed.

By the time someone was able to bring him a defibrillator, a fire rescue crew had arrived and the passenger was taken to UM Hospital.

Within days after the incident, a defibrillator was installed in the federally secured area.

And the patient made a complete recovery, even though the odds were stacked against him.

On a recent June morning, Mr. Gaylord Hall and his wife were using the check-in kiosk at the Delta ticket lobby at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, when Mr. Hall suddenly collapsed.

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Dr Dennis Tracey the Saviour

Dr. Dennis Tracey stepped in and quickly determined that Mr. Hall was not breathing and had no pulse.

Dr. Tracey immediately initiated CPR and took advantage of an on-site Automated External Defibrillator (AED).

As a result, the New Orleans Fire Department emergency medical technicians (EMTs) arrived on the scene to find the patient’s pulse had resumed as well as spontaneous breathing.

Before being transported to the hospital, the patient was conscious and talking.

Delta employee Kyla Singleton says, “I myself am so grateful that Dr. Tracey reacted so quickly and was willing to assist Mr. Hall during this grave emergency.”

Glynda Pace, the Delta Station Manager in New Orleans adds, “I understand the EMTs were on a different concourse assisting another passenger when (Dr. Tracey) took control of the situation in front of our counter. We will definitely ensure the unused ticket is refunded and appropriate bonus mileage is added to his SkyMiles account for that inconvenience. We were truly blessed to have him on the scene Monday.”

Officer Nathan Fiske Sr. was in his cruiser when he heard a call on the scanner about an unresponsive 78-year-old woman in a medical office at 112 Main St.

Officer Nathan Fiske Sr the Saviour

Life-saving measures were being taken, the dispatcher reported.

Officer Fiske’s cruiser just happened to be 900 feet away. “I knew I didn’t have a second to waste,” he said.

When he arrived, the patient was not responding to chest compressions.

Officer Fiske immediately began using the defibrillator, which registers a patient’s heart rhythm. In this case, the machine’s automated verbal commands instructed the officer to shock the woman’s heart to restore a rhythm.

Once that was done, the chest compressions continued until the Fire Department arrived and took over.

By then, the woman was breathing and responding to stimuli. When the Fire Department finished working on her, she was conscious and talking.

She was in stable condition at University of Massachusetts Medical Center — University Campus by that night.

A man collapsed and went into cardiac arrest Saturday at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, but by good luck and determined effort he was revived, according to authorities and a witness.

“It was very unusual,” said Sgt. David Schlosser, a spokesman for the U.S. Park Police.

It was an “amazing event,” said James Tansey, a prosecutor in Union County, N.J. Tansey was one of four bystanders who aided the man when he collapsed about 12:10 p.m.

“The guy was gone,” said Tansey. “No heartbeat, no pulse” and not breathing, he said. But out of the hundreds of visitors at the memorial, Tansey said, two paramedics and a doctor joined in trying to help the man.

According to Tansey, the doctor performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Schlosser said CPR was done for about four minutes before National Park Service rangers arrived with an automated external defibrillator, which restarted the man’s heart.

Although the odds of finding someone willing and able to perform CPR in such a situation are “not high,” Schlosser said, the man was “apparently relatively stable” when taken to a hospital.

FOUR months ago, crewmates Andy Millar, Anthony Cooke-Yarborough and Pieter van Vrede were in the boat with Vince Kerrigan when he started to complain of heartburn.

Vince Kerrigan (left) the Survivor

Mr Millar, who was trained as a doctor, realised something was seriously wrong.

He said: “I grabbed his wrist and was horrified to feel a rapidly fading pulse and a cold, clammy feel to his skin.”

The crew hauled him on to the bank and tried to keep him alive with cardiac massage until emergency crews could arrive.

Mr Kerrigan added: “I cannot remember any of this, but I dread to think who was giving me the kiss of life.

“The next thing I remember is being in the ambulance. I felt fine and cracked a joke about wanting something to eat.”

Only emergency first aid from lifeboatmen who rushed to the scene brought him back to life.

He said: “I was officially dead. I owe my life to the RNLI who came to my rescue. Thanks to their defibrillator, they got my heart working again.”

He was in hospital for just 48 hours after his collapse. Medics told him his heart was fine, and the problem had been with a separate major artery.

Within a month he was back at work, and within two months he was back training on the water.

Walter Peaston, a retired 69-year old medical doctor, collapsed while he worked out on a rowing machine for the community health project at Galleon Centre in Kilmarnock.

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But a quick-thinking cardiac nurse Gillian Mitchell, 31, and an off-duty fireman Kenny McGill, 35, carried out CPR on the stricken medic as gym staff raced to find a defibrillator.

He said: “He hadn’t been breathing for at least four minutes, maybe five, and there was no pulse. He was blue.

“I knew there was a heart defibrillator in the centre and I shouted to staff to get it.”

Moments later, fitness instructor Nathan Mobey arrived with the defibrillator and shocked him back to life.

Kenny said: “The guy just let out a scream and bizarrely that meant he was okay. He only believed he’d been passed out for a few seconds.”

Paramedics rushed Walter to Crosshouse Hospital after Thursday’s drama and last night he was described as being in a stable condition.

Kenny added: “It’s fortunate that both Gillian and I work for the emergency services. He’s a lucky, lucky man.”

Al Murphy, 62, retired ranger for the Chelan Ranger District, was participating in the Co-Ed Jamboree recreational hockey tournament this weekend. He was playing in his fifth game of the tournament, and third game of the day, when he went into cardiac arrest.

Al Murphy (bottom right) the Survivor

He just happened to be sitting next to teammate Dr. Lisa Petersen of Wenatchee, who started CPR when she could not find a pulse.

Players and spectators watched in horror. She continued the life-saving efforts until paramedics arrived and restarted his heart with a portable defibrillator.

Murphy regained consciousness Tuesday and was in serious condition this morning. His wife, Nanc and sons Taber and Corbin have been with him.

Steve Aceto, 54, an attorney of Montreat, N.C., was running alongside Robert Barker, his childhood friend and neighbor who is a general practitioner and running enthusiast. Aceto’s son Bill was ahead of his father.

Steve Aceto the Survivor

Aceto and Barker had made it across the bridge and were on Meeting Street at about the five-mile marker when Aceto fell motionless in the street.

Barker quickly noticed his absence and turned back to render aid to his friend, who had suffered a heart attack five years ago.

Running behind them were a number of other doctors and nurses, many of them connected with the Medical University of South Carolina.

When they began attending to Aceto, they could not detect a pulse. They began administering CPR and called for an automated external defibrillator, which administered a shock that got Aceto’s heart beating again.

An ambulance had been summoned, and they were able to get him to MUSC for treatment within minutes of the incident.

Simon Watson, an emergency room physician from MUSC, was one of those runners closest to Aceto and called the hospital so the cardiac care team, headed by Eric Powers, could be assembled quickly.

Aceto said it was a wonderful run.

“I got over the bridge and back down. I got a good bit of the way down Meeting Street and was just about to the turn at the 5-mile marker. It was like flipping off a switch. I didn’t have any sensation of falling. Just a sharp pain and oblivion.

“My next memory was looking up and seeing a bunch of people I did not know who seemed very glad to see me. I found out later they had been doing CPR on me for about 10 minutes, including my dear friend who apparently pushed a beautiful emergency room nurse out of the way to do it. He and I are going to have words about that.”

Barker said that when he saw Aceto in the road he ran back, turned Aceto onto his back, grabbed his head and began yelling to him, trying to get a response.

“We had been talking, and then I looked to my left and he wasn’t there,” said Barker.

He placed his hand on his friend’s forehead and began praying.

“All of a sudden, his right hand moved. And then somebody said he’s breathing. He said, ‘I need to get up.’ It was like he came back from the dead.”

Aceto said technically he was dead, and he plans to frame his race number, stained with blood from where he hit the pavement, alongside the printout from the automated external defibrillator to prove he ran the race.

Aceto said there wasn’t time to be frightened, that he had trust in God as well as the professionals who were treating him.

“I happened to be among the right people,” he said, “at the right place and at the right time.”

A pediatriac dentist of 32 years, the last thing Dr. Martin Kaplan of Stoughton expected on his return flight to Logan Airport from a vacation in the Grand Caman Islands on Feb. 27 was a medical emergency.

That was until a flight attendant uttered those fateful words to the passengers: “Is there a doctor on board?“

There were two doctors, in fact, and an EMT. Kaplan, the first to respond, found the heavyset man slumped backward in his seat near the First Class section.

“He was definitely, clinically dead from the first point I saw him,” said Kaplan, 59, president of Kid Care Dental, 1613 Central St. in Stoughton. “I didn’t think about anything except helping this guy.”

“He was a big guy, difficult to move out of his seat,” said Kaplan, who managed to drag the man out of his seat and lay him down in the aisle.

Kaplan was then handed an onboard automatic external defibrillator. He waited for the charge signal. Then he applied a shock to his patient’s chest – and waited.

Nothing.

Kaplan reset the defibrillator and applied another shock. Again, nothing.

Relying on his CPR training Kaplan began applying chest compressions for the next three or four minutes.

Suddenly, he noticed the man had a pulse and his eyelids began to flutter.

Finally – he got a pulse.

Slowly, groggily, the man regained consciousness.

Throughout the unexpected ordeal, Flight 1734 was on its way for an emergency landing in Durham, N.C. Kaplan said that with all the excitement he had lost track of time.

The unidentified man was later taken off the plane and to a hospital.

Kaplan returned to his seat to a round of applause from the other passengers.

He is happy with the knowledge that was there at the right time to help out.

“That was pretty cool. It was just so surreal,” he said.