EMS Coordination Saves Man From Cardiac Arrest

When it comes to emergencies, minutes can make all the difference between a good outcome or a life-changing result. For one Iowa family, a winter close call is a reminder of how important connected emergency services are in the rural Midwest.

“Charlie and I were just getting in and making a fire. I sat down back in my chair. Charlie was sitting on the couch next to me. He said my eyes rolled in the back of my head and I started breathing funny. So he quick ran and got my daughter out of her room and that's all I know. I wasn't awake for anything else,” said Troy Vollink.

“I received a phone call from Charlie telling me that Dad was unconscious. There was a lot of commotion on the phone and there was a lot of hollering because Katie was home as well. I told Katie to check for a pulse and start CPR, then I hung up the phone because I thought to myself, she needs to get going on CPR, she can't listen to me anymore. So I hung up the phone and hoped and prayed that she was going to do her job,” said Jennifer Vollink.

“I was just at home, had the pager on, heard it, and immediately just ran out to my car,” said Amy Kelly, an EMT with the Hull Ambulance Service.

“When you get a call like that, time is of the essence,” said Christine Kroese, an EMT with the Hull Ambulance Service.

“I ran inside and he was on the floor and we started CPR right away,” said Kelly.

“It was the first time ever for me to have to shock a patient and once we shocked him and we got that pulse, it was… it was amazing. It's no better feeling,” said Jessica Bakker, an EMT with the Hull Ambulance Service.

“(We) got him loaded on the car as fast as we could, got him in the ambulance and at that point, he started talking to us, which blows my mind. And when we arrived in Rock Valley they were just as shocked as we were that we had a patient that was talking to us after the call that had went out,” said Kroese.

“Within a couple of minutes of that, I was called by the local physician and had all of his date of birth and technical information so could look up everything in the computer. He already had a fairly significant cardiac history. We were able to establish all the initial parameters that the local physician relayed to me,” said Dr. Michael Hibbard, a cardiologist with the North Central Heart Institute who was on-call at the Avera Heart Hospital.

“Many times people have a cardiac arrest and they are not responding. When I got to the Rock Valley Hospital, he was responding. He was confused, but he was awake and talking. All of his vitals were stable, which I was not expecting,” said Jennifer Vollink.

“There was no immediate risk that would require emergency surgery. So he went actually to Avera McKennan in ICU first, and then he came to the Avera Heart Hospital. And as soon as he got here, he got the rest of the evaluation he needed. And all his issues were addressed and he was ultimately dismissed,” said Dr. Hibbard.

“I would like to recognize the EMS services because of their quick response, you know, and they were able to defibrillate Troy very quickly and I think that helped the outcome,” said Jennifer Vollink.

“Yeah, it's a good deal. It's just awesome that they're there,” said Troy Vollink.

“Look at everything that had to happen in order for this outcome to take place, because if anybody goes into code blue cardiac arrest, you have 6 minutes to get them going before brain damage starts to accrue. So if the 14 year old son wouldn’t have gotten the older sister, if the older sister wouldn't have called 911, if the paramedics didn't happen to be down the street, if the local doctor didn't make all the right moves at the beginning and contact us, if we didn't triage correctly and so on and so on, there's a lot of people, like I said, behind the final outcome, which is what the family sees, but there's a lot of people standing in the pyramid,” said Dr. Hibbard.

“What can I say? I'm here. I'm just glad I'm here. It could have been so much worse.” Said Troy Vollink.