A British man survived a stopped heart after three hours of 20,000 life-saving chest compressions performed by a machine.
Engineer Arun Bhasin, 53, fell unconscious in Croydon, south London, in December in temperatures of -10 degrees Celsius after falling in the street and hitting his head. He was taken to the hospital, but he suffered a cardiac arrest. There were experts at resuscitation - Dr. Nigel Raghunath and Dr. Russell Metcalfe-Smith at the Croydon University Hospital who put Bhasin on a pioneering new CPR machine, AutoPulse, which performed almost 20,000 life-saving chest compressions to keep his heart and lungs functioning. It maintained Mr Bhasin’s heartbeat for more than three hours while he was stabilized by medics and needed four full batteries to keep going.
According to Dr. Raghunath, “He was pretty much dead in that he had no pulse or heartbeat for three-and-a-half hours so it is amazing that we got him back. I’ve not seen anything like it in 15 years in A&E [Emergency Room].”
Bhasin is grateful and happy at his return from the dead. He said, “I should be dead. I can’t believe they kept me alive for so long. It’s a miracle. They are amazing people and I know I am very, very lucky.” He is now back at his home in East London and well on the road to recovery.
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