Sandy Springs gets new cardiac-care equipment

Sandy Springs fire and ambulance rescue crews have started the new year with equipment that allows them to cool down the body of a cardiac-arrest patient to minimize brain damage.

The program is considered innovative in that it provides this “hypothermia treatment” before the patient reaches the hospital.

“Patients who suffer cardiac arrest out of the hospital most often die or have neurological damage because their brains have been starved of oxygen,” said Susan Kill, director of the emergency department at Saint Joseph’s Hospital, one of the partners in the program.

She said that in certain cases of cardiac arrest, in which a sufficient cardiac rhythm is restored, brain damage can be avoided by reducing the body core temperature by about 8 degrees Fahrenheit. This technique, accomplished through the use of cold packs placed on the body, minimizes brain injury, she said.

The program is a partnership among Saint Joseph’s Hospital, Sandy Springs Fire Rescue and Rural Metro Ambulance, which serves Sandy Springs. Patients will be brought to Saint Joseph’s, where the staff has been trained to continue the treatment.

If a patient’s pulse can be restarted quickly enough from cardiac arrest– within a matter of minutes – they can recover relatively unscathed, officials said. If not, they become comatose and suffer a cascading series of injuries to the brain that will frequently lead to permanent brain damage or death.

“This could mean the difference between a return to full quality of life following a cardiac arrest, or death,” says Dr. Matthew Bitner, deputy medical director for Sandy Springs Fire Rescue.