Cardiac Arrest - December 22, 2012

We have started this blog to document the daily progress of my dad, Clarence McEldowney's, recovery from cardiac arrest and anoxic brain injury.

This journey started on December 22, 2012.  Saturday morning, the entire family had gotten together at mom and dad's house to help him carry his new pool table into the basement.  He was so excited.  He had just converted the basement bedroom/great room, into a game room with a nice bar, sitting area, and now a new pool table.  He really envisioned this new space being a fun place where the family, including his grandkids, would have fun getting together to hang out.  The guys got the pool table moved in and set up easily with little real lifting necessary....most of the moving could be described as a controlled slide.  With the table set up, the guys played a few games of pool, then Dad and Nate took off to run a few errands. 

The errands led them out towards our new farm property, where some friends of the family were dismantling an old barn to recycle some barn wood for other house projects.  There were several people out there and Dad spent some time visiting and gathering the wood.   At about 1:00pm, he and another person, Doug Cure, moved the pick up a piece of wood and as Dad bent forward, he collapsed.  At first, Doug thought he had just fallen, but quickly realized that it was something much more serious.  He screamed for help and very quickly, Tom Cure (Doug's dad) began performing CPR while the others called an ambulance.  The Pulaski Rescue arrived quickly, within 5-10 minutes and began working on him.  The ambulance arrived only minutes later.  We have been told that Dad was shocked with the defibrillator 4 times between when the Rescue arrived and when he made it to the hospital 30 minutes later (about 40 minutes total from time of event).

When he arrived at the hospital, he was hooked to a vent and his heart was stablized.  He immediately went for a CT to check his brain of bleeds. There were none. Then he was taken to the Cath Lab to check for blockages around his heart.   There were none.  They did identify damage to the metrial valve of his heart, but based upon a past heart cath in 2004, doctors had already identified a valve prolapse.  Likely, the damage to this valve was unrelated to his cardiac arrest.  So ultimately, there is no explanation for his sudden cardiac arrest.

The doctors immediately began cooling Dad as a part of a hypothermic protocol.  After stablizing his heart, all of the attention began turning towards saving his brain.  Although, all of the right steps were taken between the CPR, and other rescue efforts, it is unknown how much or little oxygen he had to his brain and for what length of time.  The hypothermic protocol is designed to slow his body and brain, kind of like hybernation, where it requires very little oxygen, and reduces the amount of secondary injury that can result after the lack of oxygen. 

So that is where we were left on day one.  Dad was transferred to the Critical Care Unit where he continued to be cooled to his lowest temperature of 33 degrees Celsius, which he reached at about 10:30pm.