ECMO

January 13, 2020

A knock on his neighbor’s door may have saved Ahmed Warfa’s life. On November 11, the 49-year-old was experiencing chest pain when he went to his neighbor for help.

“That’s the last thing I remember,” he said. “Until I woke up in the hospital.”

Warfa doesn’t recall making the initial 911 call before he passed out, but thankfully his neighbor picked up the phone and called 911 again to make sure help was on the way.

When Hennepin EMS paramedics arrived, they found him with a weak pulse and a shallow breathing pattern. As Warfa was being placed in the ambulance he went into full cardiac arrest. Paramedics gave him several shocks to restart his heart but those were unsuccessful. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) was performed throughout the entire trip to HCMC, but when he arrived at the emergency department he still had no pulse and his heart was quivering, a life-threatening cardiac arrest rhythm called ventricular fibrillation. Warfa’s best chance for survival was Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation life support – otherwise known as ECMO. (more…)

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