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| Derek Jones, centre, with two of the paramedics who saved his life, Toby Reid, left, and Chris Hawkins, right. Mr Jones was brought back from the dead a staggering 31 times in less than an hour. |
Posted on 12/27/2006 11:25:29 PM PST by LibWhacker
A Norwich electrician who was brought back from the dead a staggering 31 times in less than an hour has thanked the paramedics who refused to let him die.
Derek Jones, who celebrated his 55th birthday yesterday, astonished medics by surviving a series of potentially fatal heart attacks after being taken ill at work .
The grandfather-of-two, who lives in Hellesdon, was on his way to an electrical job in Sheringham when he began to feel unwell.
“I had a pain down the front of my chest and felt really hot. By the time I got to Sheringham, I felt terrible. I met my friend Martin (Baldry) at the job, he took one look at me and called the ambulance,” said Derek, who has two daughters, Katrina, 30, and Melissa, 24.
“I didn't have a clue what was happening to me, I thought it was something to do with a neck problem I've got. It didn't even cross my mind that I was having a heart attack.”
East of England Ambulance Service paramedics Chris Hawkins and Toby Reid arrived within six minutes of Martin's 999 call and immediately took an ECG (electrocardiogram) reading which confirmed that Derek had suffered a heart attack.
Derek was transferred to an ambulance to begin the 27-mile trip to the Norwich and Norfolk University Hospital. Five miles into the journey, his heart rate slowed to a life-threatening level.
He was immediately defibrillated, using a machine which administers an electric shock to the heart in order to re-establish a normal rhythm, and a third paramedic, Colin Woolacott, arrived in a rapid response vehicle to offer back-up.
For the remainder of the journey to hospital, Derek had a heart attack roughly every minute and required an incredible 30 further electric shocks.
“I've never encountered anything like it,” said Toby, who has been a paramedic for four years, “we would shock him and then he would come back, talk to us for a short period, and then it would happen again.
“Nearly every time his heart arrested I thought we wouldn't get him back, but we did.”
Unusually, Derek remembers several of the electric shocks administered to save his life.
“I thought I was in the middle of a nightmare and I tried to fight the paramedics off. In my line of work I've had plenty of electric shocks, but nothing like this.”
Chris, who has worked for the service for six years, added: “It was incredibly dramatic. You just couldn't believe that he kept fighting. We attend a great deal of heart attacks and if you give someone more than two or three electric shocks it's unlikely that they're going to survive.”
Heart specialists at the NNUH had been alerted to Derek's arrival, and were waiting to take over from Chris, Toby and Colin when they arrived at hospital at 1.50pm on November 21. Once in hospital, Derek's heart failed - and was revived - a further five times.
“I am very lucky to still be here,” said Derek, who was sent home from hospital seven days later after being prescribed a battery of drugs which he now takes to regulate his heart.
“There are no words to describe how I feel about the paramedics. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here today and I just can't thank them enough.”
Sharon, 45, Derek's wife of 28 years, said: “I think someone was looking down on Derek that day and saying 'it's not your time'. Without those paramedics, I wouldn't have any reason to celebrate this Christmas.
“Not many people are given a second chance like this
According to ambulance figures, fewer than one in four patients are successfully revived after suffering a heart attack.
John Scott, medical director at the ambulance service, said: “The attention and care provided by all members of the ambulance trust and subsequently by the hospital staff was quite exceptional. All are to be congratulated.
“I have never heard of a patient receiving this number of shocks before - he is truly lucky to be alive.”
it has to be that he was an electrician.........lol
Why are they giving him so many shocks in the first place? I thought the first order of business when someone has a heart attack is to inject clot busting drugs, unless his heart was getting enough blood but was just freaking out?
Ping.
NOTE: Ventricular Fibrillation
What is ventricular fibrillation?
The heart beats when electrical signals move through it. Ventricular fibrillation (ven-TRIK'u-ler fib"rih-LA'shun) ("V fib") is a condition in which the heart's electrical activity becomes disordered. When this happens, the heart's lower (pumping) chambers contract in a rapid, unsynchronized way. (The ventricles "flutter" rather than beat.) The heart pumps little or no blood.
Lucky feller.
"Someone" wants him to live.
Bartender: He's been struck by lightning... how many times has it been now, Reg?
Reg: S-s-s-s-s-s-s-six...
Chet: Six times?
Reg: S-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-six-sixty-sixty-six times. In-n-n-n-n-n-n-In-n-n-n-n-n-n-In-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n the head!
("The Great Outdoors" Dan Aykroyd, John Candy)
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| Derek Jones, centre, with two of the paramedics who saved his life, Toby Reid, left, and Chris Hawkins, right. Mr Jones was brought back from the dead a staggering 31 times in less than an hour. |
"In my line of work I've had plenty of electric shocks, but nothing like this.” "
No, really?
He didn't die 31 times. He didn't die at all or he would still be dead. His heart stopped 31 times.
"Go toward the light."
"Don't go toward the light."
"Go toward the light."
"Don't go toward the light."
"Go toward the light..."
For the remainder of the journey to hospital, Derek had a heart attack roughly every minute and required an incredible 30 further electric shocks.
Hmmm. I would simply love to get my hands on the EMS rhythm strip on that guy. I'm also trying to get my head around the physiology of a new heart attack every minute. Yikes. That's what I call crapacardia.
I can only speak for the United States, but according to the current ACLS (Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support) guidelines, the key is early defibrillation for lethal arrhythmias. The clotbusters come later, if at all. There is a very narrow window of opportunity for clotbusters to be effective.
Think ABCD. Airway, Breathing, Circulation, Defibrillation. This is the primary survey and happens within seconds, and continuously loops itself during a cardiac arrest intervention. If the heart is not working, you can dump buckets of medication into the body as long as you wish; but if the heart ain't beating, the meds ain't moving. Make sense? And even good, high-quality CPR only goes so far. So by defibrillating the heart, we sort of dope-slap it into getting back with the program. We literally stop the heart for a bit and let the heart's own electrical system reset itself. Hopefully.
You want to know what really has all of us ACLS-prepared ER Nurses revved up right now? Post-MI hypothermia therapy, that's what. We do it at my ER, and the results are very impressive. (For more on post-MI cooling therapy, jump over here.) This article is from May 2006, and we are continuing to learn more great stuff about cooling the body of a post-cardiac arrest patient.
The idea is that by reducing the core body temperature of the patient to between 32 and 34 degrees Celcius (89 to 93.2 F), you slow down the body's metabolism and thus the need of the vital organs (including the heart and the brain) for oxygen. You basically induce an artificial hybernation. It buys time.
Yet at that temperature, shivering would be uncontrollable, and the severity of the shivers would completely defeat the whole purpose of hypothermic therapy. So we defeat the body's shiver reflex by administering paralytic agents like Vecuronium. We also sedate the patient in order to keep them from having to be conscious through what can be a very uncomfortable experience.
But it's all about saving the brain. Surviving a cardiac arrest only to spend the rest of your life brain-dead is kind of a drag, see. So if we can save the brain and the heart, the patient has a much better outcome. I hope you'll pardon the pun, but as an ER nurse, I think that's pretty damn cool.
Actually, by clinical definition, any time your heart stops, you are dead. What's more, any time your heart goes go into a lethal arrhythmia (V-tach, V-fib, PEA, Torsades or Asystole) and blood ceases to be circulated throughout the body, you are also for all intents and purposes dead.
All of those rhythms are called lethal for a reason. Furthermore, that thing called a "flatline" is itself an end-stage heart rhythm. Funny, no?
Think about it. If you were not dead or nearly so by going into those rhythms or by your heart stopping, we wouldn't worry about those rhythms nearly as much as we do, would we?
Wouldn't his will kick in and distribute his property after the first heart stoppage if that were the case? I also would think all his pension or SS benefits would terminate if he died. His wife would now be a widow, etc. etc. What about a guy with an artificial heart? Is he dead? His real heart dang sure ain't beating. Inquiring minds and all.
You're quite welcome, and congrats on adding to the medical lexicon.
To accomodate the artificial heart or heart-lung machine scenarios, clinical death is the cessation of perfusion to the vital organs. It can happen, even with artificial hearts and on heart-lung machines. There are signs of death such as cessation of brain activity and renal function. That's why we monitor those things as well. The big picture and all that.
I suppose if you want to debate the distribution of the guy's property and the execution of his will and estate, you'll have to discuss that with some lawyer dude/chicky. I'm not a lawyer; I am a nurse.
And on that score, if you were on my stretcher I think you would definitely prefer my definition of clinical death over yours.
60
I'm obviously being facetious to a degree. What I'm really referring to is when the doctor "pronounces him dead." That's when everybody quits working on the guy and goes on to the next case. If someone is really "dead" when the heart stops, what is the doctor certifying with that pronouncement? Seems as if he would pronounce that the guy died sometime ago.
I realize that it's just semantics, but I think it is overly dramatic to say that a guy still living has "died" a bunch of times. To me, it's a digital concept, you either died and you are dead, or almost died and are alive. The lawyers will testify that you are dead or alive depending on what is to their advantage so I will agree to ignore them.
It also just occurred to me that in the near future, maybe a person won't be dead until his DNA has deteriorated to the point that he couldn't be cloned.
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