cardiac arrest

11.30.09

Freezing the Heart to Save the Life

Two Philadelphia doctors are championing an unconventional new treatment for keeping cardiac-arrest victims alive, with as little brain damage as possible: just give them hypothermia

By Melinda Wenner Posted 01.27.2009 at 11:18 am 10 Comments

At 3 p.m. last June 22, Pam Barco’s heart stopped. The 46-year-old ER clerk at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia was near the end of her shift when she felt dizzy, put her head down on her desk, and suddenly stopped breathing. A nearby co-worker saw Barco slump over and shouted, “Staff emergency!” Minutes later, a dozen doctors and nurses surrounded Barco’s body. They shocked her with a defibrillator. No response. They shocked her twice more. Nothing. Then: Beep. Beep. Beep.

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READ MORE ABOUT > cardiac arrest, doctors, february 2009, health, hospitals, medicine

The ParamedicYou Wear

The world's first wearable defibrillator

Posted 03.20.2002 at 4:20 pm 0 Comments

Of the 250,000 Americans who die of cardiac arrest each year, 70 percent of them do so at home, where there's no access to a lifesaving defibrillator.

Enter the WCD 2000, the world's first wearable defibrillator. Electrodes in the chest-belt monitor the heart; if they lose the heartbeat, they signal the waist-mounted defibrillator to send a shock. Meanwhile, tiny capsules release an electricity-conducting gel onto the chest.

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