A new pre-hospital medical procedure implemented by Fort Lauderdale Fire-Rescue is credited with saving the lives and improving the recovery outcomes for 13 patients in the past eight months. The procedure, called pre-hospital induced hypothermia, lowers patient’s body temperatures to reduce the risk of injury to tissue following a period of insufficient blood flow. The heart, brain and kidneys are among the organs most sensitive to inadequate blood supply.
Responding to a choking incident at a Fort Lauderdale restaurant, Fire-Rescue performed its first ever pre-hospital induced hypothermia procedure on an 81-year-old male patient who was without pulse, not breathing and had been in cardiac arrest for four minutes.
Upon arrival, Fort Lauderdale Fire Station 13 units followed Advanced Cardiac Life Support protocols and an obstruction was cleared from the victims’ airway. Minutes later, as the patient regained a pulse, crews on the scene recognized that the patient met the criteria for the pre-hospital induced hypothermia procedure. Under the new protocol, a Convenient Hypothermia Induction Caddy bag, filled with saline solution and chilled to 34 degrees, was infused. The patient’s body temperature was successfully lowered prior to delivery to the Emergency Room.
Two days later, the Fire-Rescue Medical Director, Fire Chief and EMS Battalion Chief met with the patient in his hospital room to review the outcome. “The patient had just finished a walk down the hallway and was sitting upright and talking,” said Fire-Rescue Acting Chief Jeff Justinak. “The new protocol was followed perfectly and with the assistance of all on the scene, the process of induced hypothermia was accomplished, saving this gentleman’s life.”
Battalion Chief Timothy Heiser said the procedure has been performed by Fire-Rescue in 23 incidents to date. “In all my years of being a paramedic, I have never seen so many people walk out of the hospital post Cardiac arrest with so little neurological damage,” Heiser said.
In conjunction with the hypothermia procedure, Fire-Rescue utilizes the LUCAS2, an automatic external compression device that performs compressions at the rate of 100 times per minute, a task that previously assigned to first responders.
