Back from the dead: E.R. miracle
Published: November 4, 2005
All too often we hear stories of tragedy. Of people dying on their way to the emergency room after a sudden sickness or accident. But today we have a story of hope. A man who was virtually dead when he arrived at the E.R. Not breathing. No pulse. He was blue. Most people in that condition for too long never recover. If they do, there’s a high risk of brain damage.
So how did Mr. Arish Rountree beat those odds?
At first Arish Rountree was just a little short of breath, and then, “at one time I was hyperventilating. It was like I couldn’t get a good enough breath. I was going,” he said. But en route to the emergency room, Arish suddenly got worse. He turned to his wife Shirley and said, “I’m not going to make it.”
Dr. Chris Stewart at the Mayo Clinic Emergency Department says Arish had no signs of life when he came in. Stewart headed the team that tried to pump life back into him. The situation didn’t look good, “He was grey and not breathing and we couldn’t get a pulse on him. It was a respiratory arrest.”
Animation caused by an underlying lung condition called sarcoidosis is a disease which forms scar tissue in your lungs, and can prompt bronchial spasms similar to an asthma attack. “So we intubated him and we started giving him oxygen,” Stewart said.
But by that time Arish hadn’t had a breath for more than ten minutes. it was long enough to cause severe brain damage and death.
“If i see 100 patients, 98 or 99 of them will pronounce if they come in with no pulse and no blood pressure and not breathing. It turns out he was an unusual case,” Stewart says. Reading for Arish is unusual because he made a full recovery that no one can explain. It’s miraculous to have come back from near death and to be able to walk with his family and read to his beloved granddaughter Lamya, “I prayed for him,” she said.
Answered prayers and a second chance at life. Dr. Stewart says arish was very lucky to have that second chance. Very few people recover completely after not breathing for so long. And had Arish not responded so quickly to treatment, he likely would not have made it.
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