Posted on 11/26/2005 7:00:28 AM PST by lunarbicep
AN ENGINEER has survived 28 cardiac arrests in a single afternoon, after he was resuscitated on each occasion using a defibrillator. Jeff Kerswell, 54, from Whipton, Devon, remembers little about it but his doctors and paramedics certainly will. “The consultant took pictures and X-rays of his chest and a picture of the two of us together to show there was a happy ending,” Heather Kerswell, the patient’s wife, said yesterday.
“He couldn’t believe it. He wants to use [the picture] in his research and teaching.”
Mr Kerswell, a shower engineer, was at work when he began having chest pains. “I finished work, came home at about 2.30pm and they started again, so I lay down upstairs,” he said. “They got worse, so I phoned Heather and she said, ‘Phone for the ambulance’. The last thing I remember is being carried down the stairs on a chair by the paramedics. They said it was shortly after I got to the ambulance that I had my first cardiac arrest. I don’t remember anything until the next evening, when I came off the life-support machine.”
He suffered five cardiac arrests during the journey of a mile to the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and another 23 inside the building. To the increasing surprise of doctors, they were able to bring him back on each occasion using a defibrillator, which is a device that delivers a controlled electric shock through the chest wall to the heart, in order to restore a normal heartbeat.
Mrs Kerswell, 51, said: “It’s a miracle that he is here. We were told that this was very unusual.”
A week on, Mr Kerswell has returned home and is able to walk. He is expected to be off work for three months. “I just want to thank all the doctors and paramedics involved,” he said yesterday. “There is no doubt that without them I wouldn’t be here.”
Adrian Midgley, a local GP, said: “This is highly unusual — this guy was very lucky. Recovering people is fairly successful with the equipment, but usually you would then be able to calm the heart down.”
Manish Gandhi, a consultant cardiologist at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, said: “If it wasn’t for the paramedics he wouldn’t have made it. The advice to call for an ambulance saved his life. Soon after the paramedics arrived his heart stopped beating. The public health challenge is to raise awareness about how to recognise symptoms of angina or a heart attack and to seek medical help without delay.”
He's gonna have a bitch of a time buying life insurance.
A....plumber, perhaps?
He probably has survived more than Arafat :-D
You're probably correct. In Europe, engineer does not have the same meaning as in the US. I interview a quite a bit and nearly all applicants from Europe, and a bit east, call themselves engineers if they had trade school. It's similar to boiler operators and heavy equipment operators calling themselves engineers in the states.
I don't recall any shower engineers in differential equations class.
Al Bundy, I wondered what you've been up to...
Yeah, that's weird. I wonder what this guy did for Senior Design.
but gaining on Fred Sanford
After 28 cardiac arrests you begin to winder if this guy wasn't meant to go.
Our company, with over 300 employees, won't spend the $2000 to buy a portable difribillator to have at work. We have already sent two guys to the hospital with heart attacks. It's a good thing they both made it.
Start a fund then and get each employee to contribute $10 a piece....Then with the extra $1K send 5 employees to Red Cross CPR class.....
contact your companies insurer. $2,ooo vs. a life insurance payout is a no brainer
Here's how us paramedics do it
Charge the defibrillator to 360 joules
Say "I'm clear, you're clear, everybody clear"
Whaa-thwack! <---kinda what it sounds like
(Note the acrid smell of burnt hair and skin.)
Check for a pulse
If you find one,hold hands and sing "You light up my life"... :)
ok, dumb question. What's a shower engineer?
We are self-insured. The bean counters couldn't care less about a man's life. It's the $2000 that would bother them.
Interesting idea. Although, I doubt I could get more than fifty or so to participate. Half of them speak spanish, Chinese, Bosnian, or some other language. I couldn't possibly convey the meaning of what I am trying to do to them.
The rest would look at it as the company's responsibility. "Why should I give ten bucks? Make the company pay for it."
And when you're watching TV, if the EKG looks like this:
_____________________________
1) they're not really doing CPR (which shows up on the monitor as an up-and-down waveform, really!)
2) there is absolutely no reason to shock
3) this is an indication of death, except for a few particular cases, and that efforts can be ceased
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