Breaking protocol meant the difference between life and death
by Joel Gitelson
In 1988, I was assigned to the Avenue C lifeguard station in Redondo Beach. As I sat in the tower overlooking the beach local surfer Reese Patterson came running up to the station yelling that there was an unconscious person on the Esplanade. I jumped into the truck, lights and sirens blaring and called for backup.
I found an unconscious male in his mid thirties pulseless, and non-breathing. I initiated CPR until Redondo Beach Fire Dept. Paramedics arrived. L.A. County Lifeguards didn’t have Automatic External Defibrillators [AEDs] at the time. One of the medics who arrived happened to have been one of my instructors from Paramedic Training at Daniel Freeman Hospital. I continued CPR until they hooked the patient up to their manual defibrillator. First shock…no conversion to a spontaneous heartbeat. Second shock…no conversion. Third and last shock per LA County Protocols…no conversion. I looked up at the medics and said, “ Let’s try one more. We’re not going to kill him!” They hit him one more time. I felt a pulse. We put him on oxygen, they started an I.V. Before they loaded him into the rig he started to come around.
About a year later I got a call from Arizona. It was the victim calling to thank me for saving his life. He had been a detective with a local PD, and was out jogging when he collapsed in full cardiac arrest. He told me he heard me say, “Try one more time…” Hearing is the last sense to go. ER
