2024-03-13 11:27:54
Newfoundlander Kevin McCarthy, a resident of Corner Brook, suffered a heart attack in November 2023 while operating his shovel in his driveway.
He suddenly felt a pain in his chest and started sweating. He came home, took a cold shower and asked his wife to call 911. When the ambulance arrived, his heart was no longer beating.
I didn’t react. I had no pulse, no heartbeat, explains Kevin McCarthy.
Paramedics revived him three times using cardiopulmonary resuscitation and a defibrillator.
They gave me an electric shock. They detected my pulse. They continued their efforts and they lost me. They gave me another electric shock and another, says Mr. McCarthy.
Only one in ten people survive
The number of heart attacks reported outside of hospitals in Canada is rising sharply. There are now 60,000 per year while there were 35,000 in 2020, according to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, and only one in ten people survive.
Kevin McCarthy was taken to hospital in Saint John where he received two coronary stents. He is doing better. He can walk a little more and he has changed his diet.
I keep telling myself I’m fine, but apparently it was a lot more serious than I thought, he said.
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Cardiopulmonary resuscitation maneuvers include a series of pushes on the sternum.
Photo : Radio-Canada
Nearly half of the cases in Canada are people under the age of 65, according to Donovan Taplin, a spokesperson for the Foundation. Mr. McCarthy was 58 years old at the time of the events.
Even within our organization, we’ve been surprised to see how much bigger this problem is, Taplin says. Think about this number: 60,000 people is about one case every nine minutes.
For a provincial registry of defibrillators
Kevin McCarthy survived thanks to the quick action of paramedics, Mr Taplin believes.
He believes that the government is slow to create a register of automated external defibrillators (AEDs). Newfoundland and Labrador is the only province that does not have one.
We need a coordinated system so that when someone goes into cardiac arrest, a dispatcher on the other end of the line can say, “Here’s the nearest AED,” says Donovan Taplin.
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Automated external defibrillators are found in several establishments, such as this arena in Newfoundland.
Photo : Radio-Canada
He recommends that all young people in the province receive training in cardiopulmonary resuscitation maneuvers and the use of a defibrillator, particularly in rural areas where it is more difficult to quickly access medical services.
If we really want to solve this problem of high caseloads and low survival rates, we need to ensure not only the availability of AEDs, but also the standardization of how to use them correctly, concludes Donovan Taplin.
According to a report from Colleen Connorsof CBC
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