FO dies on AA

[Murdoughnut]

Yes, they are very wrong. What a de - fibrilate - er (stop - beating - er) does is actually stop your heart for a split second.

This is done because the heart's electircal system is going haywire. Stopping the heart for one beat lets it restart itself, hopefully with a good rythm. It's the equilivant of the old movies where the hero slaps the hysterical woman back to her senses.

If the heart is asystole (AKA flatline) it is completely stopped already. Stopping it again won't do a thing. Using my example from before, you can slap a corpse all you want but he won't wake up.


The problem is that everyone watched ER and Grey's and thinks you can save Grandma if you just run enough volts through her and don't understand why the paramedics are giving up without even trying those shocker thingies. I trained with a medic who responded to a heart attack in the mall food court on black friday (the morbidly obbese guy litterally dropped dead in front of Sabbaro). The traffic was so bad that it took 50 minutes to get there. The medic actually got out and ran the last 1/2 mile which took the truck another 30 minutes. By the time the medic arrived, he had been flatlined for almost a half hour despite over 20 people taking turns doing CPR. However, this had caused such a sceene that they trasported him to the ER anyway just to keep up apperances.

That's interesting stuff. So what do you do for someone who has flatlined - is there a drug of last resort, or do you just call it?

 

[USMCmech]

That's interesting stuff. So what do you do for someone who has flatlined - is there a drug of last resort, or do you just call it?

Speaking as a EMT (or any bystander). You continue CPR until a M.D. tells you to stop, or you are too exausted to keep going. To do good CPR, particuarly on an obesse patient, a healthy adult can only work for 5-10 minutes.

As a Paramedic, you can adminster some drugs that may help restart the heart.

As a M.D., there are more drugs and more of them that you could try.



The reality is that once a heart stops cold, it's extreemly unlikely to restart again. Only 5-10% of ressusitations are successful in real life. Once a patient is asystole (flatline), they are dead.

 

[Kingairer]

Well this has been a cheery threads.

 

[Bob Ridpath]

Just the way it is.

 

[azmedic]

However, this had caused such a sceene that they trasported him to the ER anyway just to keep up apperances.

Ahh yes the show code. We would light her up leaving the neighborhood and shut down code 2 to the hospital..sad but sometimes it's what we had to do


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[Bob Ridpath]

Ahh yes the show code. We would light her up leaving the neighborhood and shut down code 2 to the hospital..sad but sometimes it's what we had to do


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I respect that, personally. May not make an objective difference but it can matter, sometimes, to the family.

Not a damned thing wrong with doing "what's right." Anybody who runs a code can read the scene and generally make a good decision in that regard when it matters. It's not done for the dead guy/gal, but for those who will remember the event tomorrow.