Coos Bay Fire Department Upgrades Heart Monitors, June 11

News release from the City of Coos Bay. The Coos Bay Fire Department received grants from the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians, and Bay Area Hospital’s Community Development Grant Program. These Grants were used to purchase two Zoll E Series Cardiac Monitors which will increase our EMT’s and Paramedics abilities to respond to patients suffering from cardiac arrest or other cardiac events including heart attacks. New defibrillatorThe new monitors are state of the art and capable of delivering a biphasic defibrillation (this measures resistance and only delivers the needed energy), performing 12 lead EKG’s, and external pacing for someone whose heart is not beating fast enough. These monitors can also check certain vital signs such as blood pressure, blood oxygen saturation, and exhaled carbon dioxide measurements. The 12 lead feature will allow our EMT’s and Paramedics to determine if someone is having a heart attack in the field and alert the hospital that the patient is a candidate for surgical intervention at Bay Area Hospitals new Cardiac Cath Lab. This early recognition and treatment has been shown to have a profound increase in survival rate. One of the best features of Zoll monitors is their ability to help our EMT’s and Paramedics perform high quality CPR. The E Series provides Real CPR Help, which measures chest compression rate and depth in real time. It also features See-Thru CPR technology to filter out CPR artifact, enabling Paramedics to see the patient’s underlying rhythm during CPR without pausing. It has been shown that Real CPR Help in combination with specialized training nearly tripled the likelihood that a patient would survive cardiac arrest. These new monitors replaced two automatic external defibrillators (AED). Early defibrillation has been shown to save lives so the old AED’s will be placed in service around the City. One has been placed in the community room at the Coos Bay Fire Department located at 450 Elrod Avenue, and the other will find a new home at the Coos Bay Public Library located at 525 Anderson Avenue. The Library’s AED will be installed on June 19, 2015.