Moses Lake is good place to survive cardiac arrests

MOSES LAKE — The Moses Lake Fire Department reports a high save rate when responding to full cardiac arrest emergency calls.

“We’ve got an excellent, excellent save rate,” said Fire Chief Tom Taylor.

A full cardiac arrest response involves reviving someone who just died. They have no pulse and are not breathing, he said.

When someone reports another person is having a cardiac arrest, emergency dispatch attempts to coax the caller into giving CPR to the patient until emergency aid arrives, Taylor explained. Sometimes the caller gives CPR and sometimes they don’t. He said usually about 50 percent of people will attempt to resuscitate the patient.

He explained a patient only has a few minutes to be resuscitated before it’s too late.

When medical aid arrives, they begin CPR and evaluate the patient immediately.

The patient is evaluated using a heart monitor, Taylor said. The $25,000 piece of equipment helps to determine what type of action needs to be taken to revive the patient and assesses their condition. It determines if medical aid can use paddles to shock the heart back into pumping.

“They tell you everything,” he said about the monitor.

Taylor explained having specific medications, equipment, trained personnel and continuing education contributed to their success.

He said the fire department’s ability to respond to incidents quickly also helps with their success rate because they are located centrally in the city allowing them a shorter response time.

“There are so many things is takes to make it run like it should,” he said. “The crews are far and above. They’re incredible.”

He was able to locate data from as far back to March, indicating how many cardiac responses they’ve had.

Since March, there were 11 cardiac arrest calls, Taylor said. Of those, four people had “do not resuscitate” wishes. Of the remaining seven, they were able to save five people. One of the resuscitated was a duel response with assistance from Grant County Fire District 5.

He said it equates to a 71 percent save rate.

“That’s incredible,” Taylor said.

He explained the national rate is 34 percent.

To further increase the number of save rates, staff vehicles at the fire department and some police vehicles are outfitted with automatic external defibrillators. The piece of equipment is used to revive someone.

The fire department aspires to place the device at various public locations for use in case of a cardiac arrest emergency. He said the device is simple to use and there would be instructions indicating how to use it.

“Those are great in the hands of community members out there,” Taylor said.

They plan to get the community involved and possibly obtain grants to fund the program.

He said the fire department plans to offer low-cost CPR classes for the public.

“We encourage people to get trained in CPR,” he said. “The sooner someone can get CPR started, the higher chance we can save a  life.”