Robert Albin, Cheating death by therapeutic hypothermia after cardic arrest.
February 232010
Jim McNab of Dunwoody has one killer story to tell. On March 30, McNab went into sudden cardiac arrest and died. But McNab is still very much alive.
You could say McNab has cheated death three times. McNab was shot in Vietnam and battled Leukemia. Then one night six weeks ago, McNab beat the odds, big time.
“We decided to go to bed. It was about 11:00 at night. And I walked this way to the porch light,” said McNab.
McNab had no idea his heart was about to stop.
“I went over to turn the lights out and she heard this crashing sound,” McNab said
“So I come running out and from here, I can look, I can see him and it looks bad,” said McNab’s wife Kaylyn.
Kaylyn McNab ran down to her husband.
“And there I was lying on my back, but not breathing, no heart, pulse, nothing. So she freaked out,” said Jim McNab.
Kaylyn McNab said she called 911 and the operator guided her through CPR. Kaylyn remembered her neighbor Dr. Robert Albin was a pulmonologist at St. Joseph’s Hospital. Dr. Albin said he was getting ready for bed when he got a call from 911.
“And, again, I’ll never forget this, as I get there, his wife is on the driveway and she screams, ‘Robert, I think he’s dead. Jim’s dead!’” said Dr. Albin.
Jim McNab’s heart had been stopped for 10 minutes. It took paramedics nearly 10 more minutes to get a pulse.
“I was out for somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes. Technically, dead,” said Jim McNab.
With a heartbeat, sudden cardiac arrest sufferers usually has about five minutes before the blood supply to their brain and other vital organs shuts down. Jim McNab was dead four times that long.
“The general expectation is we’ve lost the battle. We just can’t keep those tissues alive,” said Dr. Albin.
Jim McNab was rushed to St, Joseph’s Hospital, the same place where Dr. Albin had told other doctors about a novel new treatment for cardiac arrest patients called therapeutic hypothermia.
The treatment cools down the body to try to head off brain damage.
“Call it fate, call it ironic, call it whatever you will, I’ve given the lecture about five times now,” said Dr. Albin.
Jim McNab was Dr. Albin’s first patient to use the treatment.
When he got to the ER, Jim McNab was comatose, and Dr. Albin could see his brain function didn’t look good.
“He kept saying to me that whole night, “We’re just trying to save his brain,” said Kaylyn McNab.
To reduce the demand on his brain, the ICU staff gave Jim McNab some medicine to temporarily paralyze him, and then used chilled saline, ice and cooling blankets to drop his body temperature to 89 degrees Fahrenheit.
Knowing his friend’s future was in his hands, Dr. Albin said he was petrified.
“I had no idea as this drama unfolded whether I had resuscitated a person, or whether I had resuscitated my friend who was going to be in a vegetative state, in a nursing home, totally non-functional for the rest of his life,” said Dr. Albin.
Several days passed and Dr. Albin didn’t know if this cold saline and cooling equipment had done its job and saved Jim McNab’s brain function. McNab was opening his eyes, but he couldn’t yet speak.
It wasn’t until Dr. Albin dropped in one day, he realized his friend who had died, was very much still alive.
“I said, ‘Jim can you hear me?’ And all of a sudden his head nodded yes,” recalled Dr. Albin. “That night after I left here I was on the interstate on my way home, I guess I was overcome, and I just started crying in my car uncontrollably because I realized something extraordinary was happening.”
“Certainly he’s a miracle. But there are other miracles out there if he can get to the right hospital and the right treatment,” said Kaylyn McNabb.
Dr. Albin said he used to believe there was only one sure thing in medicine. “A person is either alive, or a person is dead. And I left medical school, I left my medical training thinking I know the difference between a living person and a dead person. And as of a couple of weeks ago, I can no longer say that. Dying isn’t as easy as we think it is.”
Kaylyn & Jim McNab couldn’t be more grateful.
Jim McNab has no memory of going into cardiac arrest or the weeks leading up to that day. A neurologist expects McNab to make a full recovery. McNab said he was just ready to get back to playing golf again.
Duration : 0:5:13
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