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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – If you’re cheering in the stands or watching on TV, you know how a close game can really get your heart pounding. And for some fans, that can be a serious problem and because of that, some new high-tech medical teams are going on the offensive to keep you safe. And because they never know what kind of opponent they’ll face, these teams of medics have to prepare for anything.
“We bring everything from the basics of a Band-Aid and an Ace bandage to a $20,000 EKG monitor, and we have 12 of those at every game,” says Lt. Mark Murray of the Columbus Division of Fire, a member of the team of medics who staff Ohio State football games in the storied Ohio Stadium each fall.
For Laura Younger’s sake, it’s a good thing these medics were prepared, since she recently suffered a heart attack at an Ohio State football game.
“I told my husband I was going to go down to the restroom and when I went down, I started not feeling well,” Laura explains. “I started feeling kind of nauseated and sweaty so I stood up to go back to see the game, I collapsed and then my heart stopped. They intubated me on the scene, performed CPR and shocked me and after 13 minutes I guess they finally must have gotten my heart restarted,” she says.
Laura owes her life to the fast-acting medics who used their high-tech gear to save her.
“I know that the CPR, the constant CPR, and the results of the fireman and paramedics being there is what saved my life,” she says.
If Laura was going to have a heart attack, experts say it’s good that it happened where it did, as Laura was attending the game less than a mile away from the Ohio State University Medical Center, home to a new program designed to treat heart attack patients sooner. The program uses state-of-the-art equipment that can beam patient information from an ambulance right to the phone of a doctor on call. And doctors at Ohio State aren’t just looking out for fans, ambulances even hundreds of miles away can activate the heart team whenever a patient needs it. Dr. Ernest Mazzaferri says the idea is to get cardiac teams in place within minutes so patients can go straight to a heart lab and bypass any delays.
“If we can actually get a patient into the hospital within the first hour of the symptom onset, we can have a dramatic improvement on how they’re going to do long-term.”
Experts say this program, which saves both time and muscle that are crucial to save during a heart attack, could be a model for others around the country.
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