Life saved at MOON Show - Have a Defibrillator handy
Tomthecoinguy
Posts: 849 ✭✭✭✭
Last month at the MOON Show (Minnesota Organization Of Numismatists) during dealer setup, I heard someone yell for a doctor or Medic. One of the dealer helpers had a heart attack. It was pretty scary as you might imagine.
A couple dealers and the Northwest Coin Club vice president, Dan Hansen, went running to his aid. Fortunately their was a defibrillator near by and Dan used it to get the guys heart started again. The ambulance arrived shorting after that, and he was rushed to the hospital.
Fortunately their is a happy ending, as the victim survived. Their is no doubt that if a lot of things had not gone correctly, he would have most certainly died. The call out for help, the quick response, and the close proximity of a defibrillator all combined to save a life.
I understand the victim is doing well, and Dan even plans to visit him next week.
We all understand that we have an aging population for our hobby. If you have a coin show of a decent size, it makes a lot of sense to make sure you have a defibrillator handy. I understand the venue for the MOON show, as well as our club's show in March, Earle Brown Heritage Center, plans to add three more defibrillators. The extra defibrillators will increase the odds that one is handy if another incident occurs.
Comments
@Tomthecoinguy That is very good news and thanks for sharing.
Fabulous news for all involved. Here's to a quick recovery and congrats to the life saver.
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CPR = usually not successful without rapid defibrillation.
Defibrillator = sometimes successful.
I’m glad it worked out. Everyone should know how to use one of these. It’s actually very easy. Clear, simple instructions are on the unit.
Defibrillators are great to have in an emergency. Years ago I submitted a request to the President of the company (my direct supervisor) for two... They came to about $10k at the time....He asked me if I was sure we should have them... I strongly assured him they were important for a company to have. Six months later, an employee collapsed with a heart attack in a meeting. The defibrillator was immediately employed and he was saved. The EMT's, when they came and took him to the hospital, said that if it was not for the defibrillator, they would have been taking him to the morgue. A few weeks later, that fellow came into my office, alive, well and very thankful. Cheers, RickO
@ricko That is a heart-warming story (no pun intended).
Many larger companies offer “free” CPR/AED training to employees. I always take the course when I can as a refresher. You never know when you’re going to need to use it!
Most individuals don't like to think about this stuff until it's too late.
Pete
Glad to hear of two happy endings!
Did they use mustard instead of gel on his chest to conduct the charge...(sorry, couldn't resist
)
Glad we can joke since it all worked out.
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Thanks for sharing. Glad it was a positive outcome. Was the defibrillator in the main room or out in the lobby?
Having gone through quad by-pass heart surgery, I had an irregular heart beat anyway. But two-3 days after, a doctor there tried changing my heart beat rhythm with a defibrillator. He says, we're going to give you a little sleeping medicine before we zap you. Sure enough I dozed off a bit but not before he placed one spatula type prong on my back. Next thing that happened was I felt the shock and suddenly sat up at the same time cursing WT*. The doctor just laughed and said, I guess we didn't give you enough meds. I replied, "You think!"
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mustard would probably work with paddles, but AED's have sticky pads that adhere and conduct without additional condiments.
Good ending to a bad situation. For over 30 years The lovely Mrs. Hydrant and I did hobby shows across the U.S.A. I did the driving and grunt work. Many of our vendor friends died of heart attacks during the shows. Most times in their hotel rooms and
two times on the show floor. The stress of the show; will I cover expenses (?) combined with the physical labor of setting up and taking down the booths did them in. Very sad.
The paying customers might think that the dealers at a coin/hobby show have got it easy. Far from it........You think being a dealer is a piece of cake? Try it yourself.
I'm not exactly sure, I believe it was in a utility room right off the main floor. It was close to the loading dock, which is where the incident happened. I heard the call for help, but since people with medical training were responding I stayed away from the scene.
That is a great point, they need to be close by and easily accessible to be useful.
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You're a smart man ricko. Just went online. I'm going to buy one for myself and Mrs. Hydrant and one for all the Hydrant families. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
im glad that worked out well
I understand Dan is a certified instructor for AED training, and had just taught a class a week before the incident. He is the guy I want on the paddles if I go down. Also, he will have a good real world story to tell next time he teaches the class.
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Agree. I saw an older guy collapse at a UCONN football game right in front of me a few years back. The lady he was with immediately started doing chest compressions and I told her I'll get help. I ran to some cops nearby to call for the ambulance to bring an AED. Guy was unresponsive for like 3 minutes. Luckily the AED did its job and brought him back and he survived. Others just froze in shock and did nothing...
My Fortune 500 company is consolidating its rented office space and moving employees to "high density" work stations (think of a high-tech sweatshop) in the office buildings it owns. There are about 800 people on my floor today and since we were moved to company owned buildings there are no longer AEDs located on each floor. To make matters worse, we also don't have conventional phones anymore. We were switched to skype phone systems which are internet and computer based. I've repeatedly told corporate security that this is a recipe for disaster as someone would have to call the building security, from their computer to notify them of an incident requiring an AED. Security would have to be called, get the AED, take the elevator up to 13 floors up, find the person affected in a rat maze and apply the AED... not good.
I noticed the AED at the gym yesterday. I hadn't really paid attention to them before. I am going to start taking a mental note whenever I see one.
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