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Paramedic students save teen

Paramedic students from a university in the Western Cape saved a fellow student after he went into cardiac arrest while exercising on the campus earlier this morning.

It is alleged that the 19-year-old engineering student was running on the track at the campus when he went into cardiac arrest. Two paramedic students who had witnessed the events ran over and assessed the patient.

The patient was not breathing and did not have the a pulse when the paramedic students got to him, they initiated CPR and phoned ER24.

Tristan Wadeley (Discovery-ER24 Medicopter spokesman) said the crews from ER24 arrived quickly and an advanced life support resuscitation was carried out with the assistance of the paramedic students.

”After around fifteen minutes of advanced life support resuscitation, the paramedics got a pulse back on the patient and he started to breathe spontaneously. He was then rushed to Louis Leipoldt Medi-Clinic where he was stabilised in the casualty and was admitted to the intensive care unit. Doctors are carrying out tests to determine the cause of the cardiac arrest.

The advanced life support paramedic on scene said that the early initiation of good CPR by the paramedic students was the biggest contributing factor in resuscitating the patient successfully. – (ER24, July 2009)

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CPR

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