38-year-old Woman Suffered Cardiac Arrest, Saved with AutoPulse

Swimming pool

February 18, 2013 - Clare Carney, a former junior world champion triathlete, suffered a cardiac arrest while swimming at Melbourne Sports & Aquatic Centre. A fellow swimmer noticed her sinking to the bottom of the pool, pulled her up to the side of the pool and with the help of the lifeguard began CPR. Within six minutes the paramedics arrived and took turns performing CPR for 35 minutes. She was intubated and shocked without response. They decided to transport her to a nearby hospital using the ZOLL AutoPulse^® to deliver consistent high-quality chest compressions.

"With a lot of cardiac arrests like this, you would stop treating them at the scene if they did not respond and call it at the scene," MICA paramedic Phil Smith said. But he knew the Alfred Hospital was minutes away and given her age and peak condition he decided to transport her. With the LifeBand^®squeezing the entire chest and improving the flow of blood around the body, Emergency physicians were amazed that Clare achieved ROSC (return of spontaneous circulation) upon arrival at the Emergency Department.

Clare woke up three days later in ICU and was amazed to hear of all the people involved in the chain of her survival. She was able to return to the pool with a fitted pacemaker defibrillator to pay tribute to her rescuers.