Summit First Aid SquadPress Clipping |
Team Efforts Save Life at Local Supermarket (3/27/97)
A man who suffered a heart attack while shopping at the Kings supermarket in Summit last month is alive today thanks to the efforts of several agencies. According to the Summit First Aid Squad, a 9-1-1 call reporting a man "having a seizure" was received just after 1:30 p.m. on Friday, February 7. At the time, the Squad had 2 ambulances on the road. One crew was on a non-emergency transportation while another had just cleared from an automobile accident scene. The second crew responded immediately. At the same time, a Summit Fire Department truck happened to be on Springfield Ave. and responded directly to the scene. Battalion Chief Mike Barber, and Firefighters Wayne Smith and Rich Staggard arrived first finding the man in cardiac arrest with 2 Kings employees starting CPR. The firemen, who have been recently trained as first responders, administered oxygen and took over CPR.
The Summit First Aid Squad Ambulance with Acting Crew Chief Alex Balish, Sue Ballantyne and Don Petrides arrived about a minute later. The Squad members immediately hooked up their semi-automatic defibrillator and administered 1 shock. The Fire Dept. team remained to assist the Squad until a paramedic unit from Overlook Hospital arrived a few minutes later. The paramedics and Squad members were able to restore a heartbeat and breathing before transporting the man to Overlook Hospital. According to Overlook Hospital, the man was released less than 2 weeks later.
This is the fourth person to be saved using the semi-automatic defibrillator since the Summit First Squad began their use in late 1993. Three of those people are still alive today. One factor that may have helped save a life in this case was the early intervention of "citizen first responders". Roseanne Deevey and Marta Pawelek, also a nursing student, are both employees at Kings and began care very quickly. National statistics show that a cardiac arrest patients chances of survival increase dramatically with early CPR and early defibrillation.
This incident will make a good case study because it included all components of a good EMS system; trained bystanders (the Kings employees), first responders (Summit Fire Dept.) Basic Life Support (Summit First Aid Squad), Advanced Cardiac Life Support (Overlook paramedics) and prompt transfer to a qualified Emergency Department (Overlook Hospital).
The Fire first responder program, a joint effort of the Summit Fire Department and Summit First Aid Squad, is a 1-year experiment that started in January. Based on it's success thus far, both First Aid Squad and Fire Department officials expect that the program will be extended.
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