I’ll be honest, it was not a great feeling that night. It was a good feeling that we got pulses back, but there was nothing in history to tell me he would survive this and that he could recover [with his brain intact]. I wasn’t sure we had done the right thing for him.
—Bruce Goodman, a flight paramedic with the Mayo Clinic’s Medical Transport unit who resuscitated a man without a pulse after 96 minutes had passed.
The Wall Street Journal reports this incredible story while explaining how new technologies such as the capnograph, which measures carbon dioxide levels of patients, are being used to revive what were once lost causes. As the paramedic indicates, ethical questions abound when it comes to weighing the results of bringing someone back to life after such a long period of time without brain damage.
On a lighter note, the cardiac arrest victim had the best line:
“I’m a regular guy. I happened to die at the right place at the right time.”
