Page 64 - Occupational Health & Safety, June 2018

DEFIBRILLATORS & CPR
SCA Survivor Spreads the Word About Learning CPR
“Keep spreading the word, teaching the public, and pushing for AED access laws in your communities. Stories like mine are the best teaching tools,” says SCA survivor J.R. Bourne.
BY KATHLEEN SIMPSON
60 Occupational Health & Safety | JUNE 2018
www.ohsonline.com
Cardiac arrest is the loss of the heart’s abil- ity to pump blood to the body. The most dramatic occurrence, sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), can happen with little or no warn-
ing. Victims abruptly become unresponsive and col- lapse. Abnormal gasping can occur, and breathing may stop completely.
According to the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Founda- tion, the most likely cause of SCA is an unexpected disruption to the heart’s electrical system, in which normally organized electrical pulses within the heart become disorganized and a chaotic quivering condi- tion known as ventricular fibrillation occurs. Blood flow to the body, along with the oxygen it carries, stops. Without blood flow, brain damage occurs rap- idly and quickly leads to death.
Sudden cardiac arrest can happen to anyone, at any time—even to someone in the prime of his or her life and who has no prior health conditions that would suggest the likelihood of an SCA event.
On June 27, 2015, J.R. Bourne, manager of cor-
By the time the ambulance arrived, J.R. was conscious and talking to EMS.
porate marketing for the PGA Tour, was spending a typical morning on a Jacksonville, Fla., beach, kick- ing a soccer ball around with a friend. He began to feel lightheaded and then collapsed. J.R.’s friend thought it was a joke, but that quickly turned to fear when J.R. began shaking, eventually becoming still and unresponsive.
Luckily for J.R., a physical therapist was practicing yoga nearby. She ran over to see what was happening, and quickly began administering CPR. After only one minute of CPR, the Jacksonville Beach Volunteer Life- Saving Corps appeared. The lifeguards had begun their shift only 20 minutes prior and had not yet driv- en their response truck to a different area of the beach, so they were moments away from J.R.’s location.
The lifeguards brought their rescue expertise and their automated external defibrillator (AED) to the emergency scene. An AED is a small, portable, computerized device that sends a controlled electri- cal shock through the heart to stop ventricular fibril- lation, allowing the heart’s normal electrical activity to return and restore blood flow. It automatically ana- lyzes the heart rhythm, determines whether a shock is needed, and charges itself to be ready to defibrillate.
Successful defibrillation is highly dependent on how quickly defibrillation occurs. For each minute in cardiac arrest, the chance of survival goes down by about 10 percent. After as few as 10 minutes, survival is unlikely.
The lifeguards performed team CPR as one of them prepped the AED. Two shocks were delivered, with J.R. regaining consciousness briefly after the first shock. He was unable to open his eyes or verbally respond, but he remembers hearing the urgent con- versation among his rescuers. “I heard them talking about someone’s pulse returning and then starting to lose it again, and I wondered who they were talking about,” he recalled, “and then I was gone again.” He had become unresponsive again and the lifeguards delivered a second shock.
By the time the ambulance arrived, J.R. was con- scious and talking to EMS.
“It’s almost too overwhelming to even think about,” J.R. explained. “That this happened to me.
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