New procedure helps lightning victim survive

[Chimpie]

From ABC7 in Sarasota, Florida...

A Suncoast man is out of the hospital, a little over a week after he was struck by lightning. He's home now thanks to some new treatments at Sarasota Memorial Hospital.

28-year-old Eric Troyer was fishing on Siesta Key last week when he was struck by lightning. Doctors at Sarasota Memorial say a special cooling treatment nearly doubled his chances of walking away with good brain recovery.
<snip>
"Patients who have had cardiac arrest are more likely to survive and are more likely to survive with a good neurological recovery if they're cooled." This was the first time Dr. Kenneth Hurwitz has induced hypothermia in a lightning strike victim by using this cooling technology, by placing a catheter into a patients leg vein. "The cold saline, the cold salt water just goes into that balloon and back out. It actually doesn't drip into the patient, it just cools the catheter." As blood flows around the catheter, a person's body temperature begins to cool, from 98.6 degrees to 93.

Source: Read the rest of the article here

This happened on Siesta Key close to where I live. Today news was breaking about how this man's recovery was progressing. I thought I would share it with you and the uniqueness of his procedures.

 

[mikeylikesit]

well hypothermia has been done for treatment before...but whatever helps is good.

 

[mdkemt]

Lucky guy! If it works great!

MDKEMT

 

[karaya]

Induced hypothermia. A new concept and one that is used by Wake EMS in NC and some in Florida.

Here is a link from an article earlier this year:

http://www.emsresponder.com/web/onl...-Induced-Hypothermia-for-Heart-Attacks/1$6861

 

[WuLabsWuTecH]

One of the suburban Fire Depts in my area just started having the capibilities to do something like this. They have refridgeration on their new truck to keep all the IVs cool and they keep ice packs and the like in it

 

[mycrofft]

I'm digging for AHA source but not finding it.

Surely my fault, but I only could find a citation by AHA that a European study and an Australian one indicated benefit, and the Aussie one showed a much greater benefit than was quoted in the new article.
I rememebr the injunction was "cool gradually", but during one killer heatwave in the midwest (1980) the Lincoln General ER (Lincoln, NE) was forced to go buy an inflatable raft, keep it in one ER bay and stock it with maybe sixty gallons of icewater. Dropping the pt in directly seemed to do the trick better than dancing around, if the pt was not in arrythmia etc., but seemed to primarily be in early or prodromal heatstroke.

 

[daedalus]

OP, this is not a treatment for lightning strike, but rather Cardiac Arrest in general I believe.

Cool stuff. Check out this article, written by Bledsoe

http://www.jems.com/news_and_articles/columns/Bledsoe/Back_to_the_Future.html

 

[VentMedic]

Induced hypothermia. A new concept and one that is used by Wake EMS in NC and some in Florida.

It has been around off and on for over 20 years. The technology to cool the patient is just getting better to where the procedure can be effectively controlled without damaging vital organs while trying to preserve them.

 

[karaya]

It has been around off and on for over 20 years. The technology to cool the patient is just getting better to where the procedure can be effectively controlled without damaging vital organs while trying to preserve them.

I should have stated a new concept for pre-hospital. Since we're all pre-hospital care here, I assumed people would have figured that out since the article that I attached on my last post clearly discusses this in the pre-hosptial setting.

 

[Epi-do]

We just got a protocol at the beginning of the year this year to induce hypothermia post-cardiac arrest in the field. I have yet to hear if anyone has been able to use it in the county. I know my department hasn't had a ROSC yet that would meet the requirements of the protocol.

Also, one of the neurologists here did a lecture on ischemic strokes at A&R a few months ago and stated there are currently some studies going on that are looking at treating CVA patients with induced hypothermia as well. It will be interesting to see how the studies turn out and see if it is something that the hospitals will begin doing on a "regular" basis in the future.

 

[VentMedic]

I should have stated a new concept for pre-hospital. Since we're all pre-hospital care here, I assumed people would have figured that out since the article that I attached on my last post clearly discusses this in the pre-hosptial setting.

I know what you meant and I also meant that this was tried in Florida in the 1980s for prehospital situations such as pediatric drownings. It was an attempt to mimic the miraculous recovery of a child that fell into some body of water in a northern state. However, in Florida we have no bodies of water that will chill a body as quickly as one in Michigan or Minnesota. The ice packs or bags didn't work that well either.

We've been doing hypothermia in the hospital in pedicatrics for many years. In adults, we've been doing it "fairly occasional" to almost regularly for about 7 years. The physicians are very selective with which patients will be on hypothermia. But then, that is a decision that will be made in the hospital if hypothermia will be continued. From my own personal observations, if a person can withstand being chilled to 33 degrees without shivering and requiring a paralytic (along with the sedation) for 24 hours, the rewarming may not bring welcome results.