April 23, 2019 07:22 PM
On Friday, April 19, Albert Lea resident Ronald Laite was invited to work on a dock at Fountain Lake with friends. Just a regular days work, for a normally healthy 43-year-old, that almost turned deadly.
"A buddy called me up and asked if I wanted to help with a dock, and so I said sure and went down there. I felt something weird going on so I tried to pull myself towards the center and then next thing you know I'm in the hospital," said Laite.
Officials said that Laite went into cardiac arrest which is commonly associated with a heart attack, yet the two are very different.
"Cardiac arrest or sudden cardiac death is an electrical problem of the heart. Basically where there is no effective heartbeat and no blood flow to the vital organs of the body.
A heart attack is a circulation problem effectively where there is a blockage in one of the arteries that supply blood to the heart. So two different problems," said Dr. Ammar Killu, who is a Cardiac Electrophysiologist at Mayo Clinic.
Dr. Killu said even though most of the people who learn how to perform CPR may never end up using it, just knowing what to do raises that persons' chance of survival.
"Doing CPR which is basically chest compressions in this situation, helps get whatever oxygen is still in the body around to those organs. The quicker you can perform CPR the more effective the CPR is and the higher chances of survival, " said Dr. Killu.
For chest compressions, you want to remember 30/2. 30 compressions to the chest about 2 inches in depth. You also want to administer about 120 compressions per minute.
Laite's friend was just CPR certified two months ago, and he said that he never thought he'd have to use.
"I'm very thankful he got trained in on CPR. he saved my life," said Laite.
Learn, Enjoy and Save Life. HealthForce Training Center offer services such as Basic Life Support (BLS), Advance Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS), Pediatric Advance Life Support (PALS), CPR AED, Pediatric First Aid CPR AED and First Aid CPR AED. Read more of our blogs.
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