An eleven-year-old at a swimming lesson was recently saved by class lifeguards, who noticed the boy had fallen unconscious and rescued him from the water. Cade Ewington had suffered cardiac arrest, leaving him face down in the water. After being pulled to safety, paramedics had difficulty restarting his heart and Cade actually didn’t take a breath for 25 minutes — meaning he was medically dead.
It turns out that Cade had a very rare heart rhythm condition known as Long QT, which causes difficulty with the electrical activity of the heart. His heart went into a sporadic rhythm called ventricular fibrillation, meaning that his heart was not able to pump blood. Luckily, Cade was revived and suffered no brain damage after the trauma despite being unresponsive for so long. Doctors attributed a lot of Cade’s luck to the immediate care provided by the lifeguards. If they hadn’t been so well trained in CPR, Cade may have had permanent issues following the accident. Instead, he was fitted for an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), which will restart his heart if he suffers another cardiac arrest.
Proper Reactions Saved His Life
The ICD is battery-powered and keeps track of a person’s heart rate – if an abnormal heart rhythm is detected, the device will deliver an electric shock to restore it to normal. Batteries in the device will need to be changed every eight years, and it sends results to the hospital each night. In truth, it was only a matter of time until Cade suffered cardiac arrest due to his condition — now that he is diagnosed and fitted with an ICD he is much safer.
For more on Cade’s story, read the full article at Daily Mail.