The Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation is dedicated to bringing you the latest news and developments in sudden cardiac arrest prevention and treatment.
Documentary Explores Therapeutic Hypothermia
Every year, about 40,000 people in Canada go into sudden, cardiac arrest. About 95% die. But doctors and researchers are experimenting with new ways of delivering treatment, and they're offering some glimmers of hope. In Ontario, a clinical trial is underway that involves chilling the bodies of those whose hearts have stopped functioning. The hope… Read More
A Coach With a New Career
Dale Wakasugi, St Paul, MN – 49 at time of event (2007) It all started in Seattle sometime in 1995. Dale was a victim of his heredity, and not a traditional Japanese one. Working in the pharmaceutical industry he was only 36 years old, and yet he suffered a heart attack. Technically known as an MI (Myocardial Infarction) it was caused by a… Read More
Let Me Go By Myself First
Kim Zalepa, Interlaken, NJ – 40 at time of event (2008) It was their first skiing trip with the kids. Kim was feeling nervous, almost like a novice, since she hadn’t been skiing for over a decade. They’d had two daughters in eight years and felt it was time to enjoy a day in the snow that March. Kim and her husband,Todd, took… Read More
Doctors at PENN Champion Hypothermia to Preserve Brain Function
Their efforts are profiled in Popular Science Members of Penn Medicine’s department of Emergency Medicine and division of Cardiovascular Medicine are profiled in a Popular Science magazine cover story about the growing use of therapeutic hypothermia to preserve brain and organ function following cardiac arrest. Quoted in the story are Lance Becker… Read More
An Abrupt End To Lunch
Larry Osborn, Pueblo, CO – 60 at time of event (2008) Every Monday they get together for a business related lunch. For fifteen years Larry had been a reliable lunch partner. But, on the third Monday of January, 2008 Larry walked out on them. He didn’t say anything, he just left. He got in the car and drove away. Then he crashed it into a parked… Read More
Driveway Desperation
Rick Mylin, Warsaw, IN – 45 at time of event (2008) A big box hardware store was nearly the end of Rick. It was a Saturday afternoon, and while RIck doesn’t remember anything about it, his wife said she’d called him to ask if he was OK. He’d indicated earlier that he wasn’t feeling well. Jo Lynn noticed Rick sounded odd. “She asked all the… Read More
Pulled Out The Whistle
Drew White, Michigan City, IN – 29 at time of event (2007) I was asked by a friend in the summer of 2007 if I might be interested in officiating YMCA basketball games over the winter. Not having officiated a basketball game since I was in college over seven years ago, I thought about it and thought it might be fun to pull out the whistle and have… Read More
Shallow Water Blackout
Erick Itoman, Pittsburgh, PA – 33 at time of event (2006) On May 13, 2006, I suffered what is known as “shallow water blackout.” At the time of the accident, I was in the middle of an Internal Medicine Resident at the University of Hawaii. There were three of us that day. Greg Sakamoto an Internal Medicine Prelim Resident (who is now doing… Read More
A Determined Chef Who Can't Stay Down
Doug Chrisman, 18, Hyde Park, NY – 18 at time of event (2008) Monday morning, 7:30am, Doug was busy skimming the stock in preparation for that day’s class. The stock didn’t make it. Doug did. His classmates at the CIA (The Culinary Institute of America that is) saw the freshman from Missouri collapse, and one of them ran to get… Read More