More than 100 hours of resuscitation saved the life of a young man whose heart stopped due to electric shock

“I woke up to find out my heart had stopped beating,” Mr. Du said on the morning of November 27, after more than a month of treatment at Da Nang Hospital with the diagnosis upon admission being “dead”.

When the incident occurred on the afternoon of October 24, Du was unconscious and lying on the corrugated iron roof. Two neighbors discovered him and quickly turned off the power, took him underground and called 115. Du had cardiac arrest and stopped breathing, meaning his circulation stopped. Emergency staff 115 quickly arrived at the scene to perform chest compressions, intubate, squeeze the balloon continuously for 20-25 minutes and transferred Du to Da Nang Hospital, about 6 km from the accident site. When he arrived at the Emergency Room at Da Nang Hospital, Du still had not regained circulation.

At this time, the patient was initially determined to be “dead”, but doctors continued to give first aid, chest compressions, and balloon ventilation through endotracheal intubation. Dr. Le Duc Nhan, Director of Da Nang Hospital, was on leadership shift and received and followed the patient throughout the process from emergency care, chest compression on the way to the Intensive Care Room. “I recommend immediately setting up a heart-lung artificial system,” Dr. Nhan said.

Cardiopulmonary bypass, or ECMO, is very expensive. The patient is in a situation where the circulation has stopped for more than 30 minutes, so he is in the “consider ECMO intervention” case because the likelihood of survival is very low. However, the doctors still decided to use ECMO, because the patient was still too young and “still had a chance for cardiopulmonary resuscitation” thanks to 115 continuous and methodical first aid operations right from the time the circulation stopped until the time he entered the hospital.

“Sometimes the decision to intervene for a patient is a professional hunch of the doctor, and in this case it was the right decision,” Dr. Nhan added, stating that the emergency red alert procedure to stop the ECMO circulation immediately was performed. Warm up for Du. The team of doctors includes Intensive Resuscitation, Cardiovascular Surgery, the operating room unit of the Department of Anesthesia and Resuscitation, connecting to VA ECMO within 10-15 minutes.

Doctor 2 Bui Van Dung, head of the ECMO implementation team, said the time from Du’s cardiac arrest from the scene to being successfully placed on ECMO was within 60 minutes. Thus, the patient had cardiac arrest for one hour. At this time, the patient showed a very serious condition, acute circulatory failure, acute respiratory failure, brain hypoxia injury after circulatory arrest…

Da Nang Hospital has mobilized human resources and all advanced modern intensive resuscitation measures such as ECMO, mechanical ventilation to support breathing, hypothermia to protect the damaged brain, plasma exchange, and continuous dialysis. , internal medicine treatment of sedation – muscle relaxants, antibiotic therapy… to save patients.

After more than 100 hours of intensive resuscitation, the patient recovered circulation, was weaned off ECMO and continued medical treatment. 10 days later, the patient’s breathing improved, weaned off the ventilator and was extubated. The patient also had a period of psychosis due to cessation of cerebral circulation for too long, but thanks to special care, he was completely alert and spoke normally.

On November 27, Du was discharged from the hospital to the joy of the doctors and family.

“This is truly a spectacular revival, coming back from the dead,” Dr. Nhan said, adding that the patient was young and fortunately the cardiopulmonary resuscitation process was continuously performed by Emergency 115 doctors. Continuous, standard chest compressions to try to maintain blood flow to the brain. The team at Da Nang Hospital coordinated methodically, racing against time to save lives.

According to medical literature, if a patient is given emergency circulatory arrest after 30 minutes without effectiveness, it is “considered over and a failure”. But Dr. Nhan believes that patient Du’s case proves that if intensive, multi-specialty emergency care is given at the same time, modern means and techniques are applied at the same time, the patient can still be brought back to life. living. Du shared when discharged from the hospital: “I’m lucky but also thanks to the very good doctors.”

The Intensive Care Department of Da Nang Hospital has been performing ECMO techniques for nearly 10 years and is one of three major ECMO centers in the country, after Bach Mai and Cho Ray Hospitals. Of the 200 cases that were intervened, about 30 cases involved both emergency circulatory arrest and ECMO placement.