Wednesday, May 14, 2003
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Wednesday, May 14, 2003 |
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Medics defend treatment of fallen player By JOHN MUNFORD
Fayette County emergency officials are defending the way a youth baseball player was treated after he was struck in the chest Friday night by a pitch and died later from an erratic heartbeat. An e-mail circulating the county criticizes the paramedics who treated John Peter Ashmore for an allegedly slow response time, for not shocking his heart and for almost dropping him off the stretcher when he was rushed to the ambulance. "It took EMS 15-20 minutes to get on the site," the e-mail charges. "When they did get on the site, they only worked on the boy for a couple of minutes on the field and then put the boy on a gurney and took him to the ambulance. En route to the ambulance, the paramedics almost threw him from the gurney when going over a curb. Not only was the response time unacceptable, but so was the facts that they did not buckle the child on the gurney nor did they use the paddles to shock the heart into motion again," the e-mail charges. The first ambulance got there within five minutes and 24 seconds of receiving the call from the county's 911 dispatch center, which is a good time, said Deputy Chief Allen McCullough of the Fayette County Department of Fire and Emergency Services. It took just over one minute to dispatch the first call taken by the 911 center, said director Cheryl Rogers. And because Ashmore had stopped breathing and was showing a weakening pulse, it was more important to restart his breathing and administer drugs through an IV and perhaps administer limited interventional procedures that paramedics are allowed to perform, McCullough said. While paramedics failed to strap him to the stretcher, it wobbled a little but Ashmore was never injured during the transport, McCullough said, adding that several people were carrying the stretcher at the time, making it more stable than if it were carried by just two people. "John's medical condition was appropriately managed by the trauma protocols that have been approved by our medical director and are consistent with the national standard of care in managing trauma," McCullough said. He noted that the survival rate of victims who sustain cardiac arrest from blunt trauma is less than 1 percent. It was unlikely Ashmore's heart was in a "shockable rhythm" because of the manner in which he was injured and based on the information from an off-duty Clayton County paramedic who attended to Ashmore moments after he was struck, McCullough said. Ashmore died from a disturbance to his heart rhythm that was brought on when the ball struck his left chest, said Dr. Kris Sperry, the state's chief medical examiner. Ashmore's heart was bruised during the incident, added Sperry, who conducted the autopsy Saturday morning. Ashmore did not have symptoms indicating that his heart needed to be shocked when he was first attended to by medical personnel, McCullough. According to the circulating e-mail message, "John was up to bat and was hit by a wild pitch in the upper part of his chest. When the ball hit, he immediately grabbed his chest, started crying and dropped to the ground. He stopped crying and his body went limp. Several coaches and parents were on the scene and immediately began doing CPR, but it did not seem to help." Paramedics were able to get Ashmore loaded into the ambulance and on the way to Fayette Community Hospital within 12 minutes after arriving on the scene, which was an excellent time, McCullough noted. When the paramedics first approached the victim, they spoke with an off-duty Clayton County paramedic who was already on the scene and said Ashmore's pulse appeared to be weakening. Instead of dragging a lot of medical equipment from the ambulance, the paramedics decided to rush Ashmore to the ambulance where other paramedics were preparing to intervene with medical procedures, McCullough said. That was to shave some time off getting Ashmore to the hospital, McCullough added. The goal was to take Ashmore to Fayette Community Hospital to continue resuscitation efforts and then fly him to a trauma center hospital, McCullough said. "You're trying to do this as quickly as you can," McCullough said. Paramedics were able to resuscitate Ashmore several times after he was clinically dead, McCullough noted. "They were able to do the things they needed to do to save him," McCullough said.
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