On-Site Medic Speaks to Value of CPR
June 21--PALM BEACH GARDENS -- The American Heart Association this month is focusing on encouraging people to get cardiopulmonary resuscitation training. Nearly 383,000 cardiac arrests occur outside hospitals each year, 88 percent of them in the home, according to the association.
Joseph Schunatz, 26, knows the value of CPR training. He works as an on-site paramedic for G-Force Protective Services, the company that oversees security for the 1,700-home BallenIsles community. He's a first responder, usually arriving on the scene of a cardiac arrest five minutes before a city fire-rescue crew can get there. Just before this past Thanksgiving, Schunatz got a call for an "unresponsive person."
Question: What happened?
Answer: The wife brings me into the room. She says her husband was up this morning, she left for 30 minutes and she came back and he was on the floor.
Q: How did he look to you? Did you think he was dead?
A: He was pale but still had color. We have dead, and we have dead dead, and he wasn't dead dead. It's not the only time I've performed CPR on someone. Every time, you have to have a glimmer of hope you're going to be able to save someone.
Q: What did you do?
A: I carry the same supplies the regular fire trucks and ambulances do. I checked for a pulse. He didn't have one. I put him on a monitor and his heart rhythm was in v-tach, ventricular tachycardia. It had electrical activity but no mechanical activity. I began CPR.
Q: Hands-only CPR?
A: Yes. My CPR is the same as any bystander's CPR. But once you have a full team, then they can start going to advanced procedures.
Q: Next?
A: Fire-rescue had already been dispatched, at the same time. They showed up five minutes later and continued CPR as well as starting advanced life support on him with an automated CPR machine. It hooks up to an oxygen bottle and does compressions for them. They also started an IV and started giving him medications. The patient arrived at Palm Beach Gardens Hospital with a pulse, but still unresponsive. He was in the hospital for maybe two months. He needed a pacemaker. He came home this February.
Q: So how's that make you feel?
A: It makes you feel like you're actually doing something. To save someone else's life so they can see their loved ones again and actually see the person alive and well is a great feeling.
Q: Any words to the wise about getting CPR training?
A: It's a great thing, that anybody at any age can learn it, and they can save their loved ones, friends and family, and quick response is all it takes.
Copyright 2014 - The Palm Beach Post, Fla.
