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December 22, 2007 - 1:50AM
New technique helps man survive heart failure
Julie Janovsky, Tribune
Scott Rogers has much to be thankful for this holiday season. Less than two weeks ago, the 48-year-old grandfather from Phoenix was given a new lease on life.
Rogers, a construction worker with Hunter Contracting in Gilbert, went into cardiac arrest at a north Scottsdale construction site on the afternoon of Dec. 14. Thanks to the quick thinking of an off-duty police officer, along with his co-workers and a new lifesaving technique administered by Scottsdale firefighters, Rogers is alive to tell the tale.
“I appreciate what they’ve done for me and my family,” said Rogers, who on Friday — two days after being released from Mayo Clinic Hospital — publicly thanked his group of rescuers at a ceremony at Scottsdale Fire Station 611 on Pima Road.
Rogers said he never had a history of heart problems and described his collapse as “out of left field.”
Steve Goodman, a foreman with Hunter Contracting, received an emergency dispatch from his crew and rushed to the scene about 500 yards away to find his employee purple and without a pulse. Kearny police officer Thoriena Hensley, who was off-duty and directing traffic at the construction site, followed Goodman and quickly began administering traditional CPR in tandem with Goodman until Scottsdale firefighters and emergency medical technicians arrived.
When the EMTs took over, they started cardiocerebral resuscitation — a first-aid technique that employs continuous rapid, forceful chest compressions. Then they employed a new therapeutic hypothermic treatment intended to protect brain cells from injury during resuscitation.
Dr. Ben Bobrow, medical director of the Scottsdale Fire Department, said Rogers was put into a mild state of hypothermia using cold IV fluids and ice packs to lower his body temperature to 92 degrees Fahrenheit. Rogers’ temperature was kept down until he awoke at the Mayo Clinic Hospital’s emergency room, where Bobrow, who is also an emergency physician at the hospital, treated him for ventricular fibrillation — a condition that interferes with proper blood flow.
“Everything came together on this call,” said Jay Ducote, the Scottsdale Fire Department’s EMS battalion chief, referring to the quick succession of action and the use of the new technique his crew had been trained on by Bobrow three months earlier.
Rogers was outfitted with a defibrillator and said he will be recovering at home over the next few months.
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