Dozens of people perform CPR to save one heart attack victim, 96 minutes

[Liberal_in_LA]

Dozens of people perform CPR to save one heart attack victim

When Howard Snitzer clutched his chest and crumpled on a freezing sidewalk outside Don's Foods in Goodhue, Minn., he was wearing gym shorts, fresh from his daily workout. Across the street, at Roy and Al's Auto Service, the Lodermeier brothers were getting ready to close. A local high school teacher ran up.

"He said a guy had fallen on the sidewalk," Al Lodermeier says. At that moment, Don Shulte, owner of the grocery store, walked in. The three ran back to where Snitzer lay on the sidewalk. He wasn't breathing. He had no pulse. If he didn't get help soon, he would die.

For the next 96 minutes — more than an hour and a half — Al, his brother Roy, bystander Candace Koehn, who saw Snitzer fall, and more than two dozen other first responders took turns performing CPR on the fallen man. Their teamwork saved Snitzer's life, in what may be one of the longest, successful out-of-hospital resuscitations ever.

What makes the incident even more striking was that it took place in rural Goodhue, pop. about 900, a town without a traffic light.

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'Extremely grateful'
Snitzer spent 10 days in the hospital. Doctors there cleared a blood clot from a critical artery and propped it open with a stent. The early reports on his condition were "pretty dismal," Goodman says. "When I came to work five or six days later, I looked him up to see when he had died. I found out he had a room number."



http://yourlife.usatoday.com/mind-soul/doing-good/story/2011/03/Dozens-of-people-perform-CPR-for-96-minutes-to-save-heart-attack-victim/44427376/1?csp=24

[HereSince1628]

1. +++++!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's really a tremendously positive story about what community and caring for others means!

[uppityperson]

2. k&r for never give up

[Brigid]

3. I posted about this story in the Lounge.

I didn't see your post. But at least here I get to K&R. :dem:

[Aerows]

4. Totally amazing K&R

It's wonderful what people can do when they put their minds to helping another human being :)

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. That is a record

and I suspect the cold also helped...

[Maine_Nurse]

6. I'm impressed that civilians kept going that long and agree that hypothermia can be useful.

[Sonoman]

7. I was once given mouth-to-mouth for more than 30 minutes.

Pulled a dumb stunt and drowned. A guy performed m-t-m on me until the Volunteer FD showed up.

I spent the next two years at TIRR, the place where Giffords is recuperating.

Sonoman

[Liberal_in_LA]

8. wow! Glad you survived!

[Sonoman]

9. It was quite an experience (link below)

http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x279507