EMTs have stopped taking people in cardiac arrest to coronavirus-strained hospitals

[Martyn]

EMTs have stopped taking people in cardiac arrest to coronavirus-strained hospitals

Cardiac arrest victims whose hearts cannot be restarted at the scene are now being left there — rather than being brought to coronavirus-strained hospitals for further revival attempts, accor…

nypost.com

“No adult non-traumatic or blunt traumatic cardiac arrest is to be transported to a hospital with manual or mechanical compression in progress without either return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) or a direct order from a medical control physician unless there is imminent physical danger to the EMS provider on the scene,” the directive said.

 

[Jim37F]

So.... hows that any different than most other places already doing stay and play work cardiac arrest on scene long before this COVID pandemic?

 

[DesertMedic66]

So in other words the are starting to do what a lot of systems have been doing for a while now?

 

[DrParasite]

We stopped doing this 10+ years ago.... NY is finally catching up with the rest of EMS

 

[johnrsemt]

NYC and most of CA is behind times in EMS and always has been; I have worked EMS since 1996, and have never transported Cardiac arrest patients unless we got ROSC. Sometimes if we got it and lost it we could transport. My part time job, we can only transport if we get it and maintain it (half of our coverage area since we cover 2 states we can't transport dead bodies across state lines and the only hospital in that state won't take a cardiac arrest patient). Makes life interesting

 

[Carlos Danger]

My part time job, we can only transport if we get it and maintain it (half of our coverage area since we cover 2 states we can't transport dead bodies across state lines and the only hospital in that state won't take a cardiac arrest patient). Makes life interesting

Except that while you are attempting resuscitation you are transporting a "patient", not a "dead body".

 

[johnrsemt]

No when they are dead, and we are attempting resuscitation they are still dead, and we don't transport unless we get ROSC. We haven't transported without ROSC for years. Where I work now, at either job (in either state) and where I used to work. We haven't transported patients/dead people without ROSC 1st except in extremely rare cases for most of the 24 years I have worked in EMS

 

[DesertMedic66]

No when they are dead, and we are attempting resuscitation they are still dead, and we don't transport unless we get ROSC. We haven't transported without ROSC for years. Where I work now, at either job (in either state) and where I used to work. We haven't transported patients/dead people without ROSC 1st except in extremely rare cases for most of the 24 years I have worked in EMS

So if you work a patient and then pronounce them, do you declare time of death as the time you got on scene or the time you stopped at resuscitation measures? For us patients are patients until we decide to stop all measures and then they are considered dead.

 

[Tigger]

No when they are dead, and we are attempting resuscitation they are still dead, and we don't transport unless we get ROSC. We haven't transported without ROSC for years. Where I work now, at either job (in either state) and where I used to work. We haven't transported patients/dead people without ROSC 1st except in extremely rare cases for most of the 24 years I have worked in EMS

Yea, what desert said. You aren't transporting a dead body across state lines, that's a bit hyperbolic.

 

[Billyd]

When I did my ER rotation for EMT school, county fire brought in a cardiac arrest. First time doing CPR on a person almost as cold as an ice cube. Fire brought him to the hospital why instead of declaring? Because the family was distraught. Almost made me want to stop right there lol

At a Kaiser facility we took a patient to the other day, a nurse said it took them 10 minutes to get through the COVID tent to the main ER with a cardiac arrest patient. 35 minutes to get through the tent with a pediatric respiratory IFT the other day. Boy is it getting weird

 

[OceanBossMan263]

There was another policy out for immediate field termination of confirmed asystole. That was quickly rescinded because the NY Post and Facebook Moms groups "reported" on it and people lost their minds as usual, even though the procedure was in line with AHA and really just encouraged use of existing protocols. We are back to the former protocol of 20 minutes in non-shockable rhythm without ROSC being approved by online medical control.