Drew Basse got into his car to leave the gym, exhausted after more than an hour of working out.
His heart stopped in cardiac arrest. A security guard saw him slumped in the driver’s seat with the car door open.
An off-duty paramedic, Scott Brawner, happened to be at the same Clackamas gym that day and got a cellphone alert. Brawner found Basse in his car within a minute and performed CPR.
That action saved Basse’s life.
Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue officials expect many more happy endings in the Portland area over the next two years through a pilot program launched Tuesday.
It’s a first in the nation because it will allow trained off-duty firefighters to go into homes perform CPR. More than 200 paramedics and emergency medical technicians have signed up. Although they only serve the Tualatin Valley area when they’re working, they live around the Portland metro area and will be able to resuscitate patients anywhere.
“Out of all the services we provide as a fire department, it’s the one service where we save more lives than anything else that we do,” said Brent VanKeulen, the department’s EMS chief.
The program is a joint effort with PulsePoint, a phone app that alerts volunteers to a nearby sudden cardiac arrest. Volunteers have to sign up with the app. More than 42,600 have done so in the Portland metro area.
The volunteer goes to the scene and performs CPR if they know it. If not, they’re told how to perform chest compressions by the app.
The idea is to get someone to the scene even before an ambulance arrives.
The volunteers are alerted only when the patient is in a public place, like a mall or gym. Under the pilot program, the firefighters will be notified if they’re within a quarter-mile radius of a sudden cardiac arrest event in a home. Each has been equipped with a personal defibrillator donated to the fire department by Phillips Healthcare and when they respond, they’ll be on the clock and covered by the department’s insurance.
Allowing off-duty firefighters into private residences will increase the chance of saving more lives because 80 percent of all sudden cardiac arrest cases happen in the home, said Cassandra Ulven, spokeswoman for the fire department.
All of the firefighters are certified by the state as emergency medical technicians or paramedics.
“We don’t want random strangers going into someone’s home,” Ulven said. “All of these folks have had background checks. They’ve had the training. We know they will do it right.”
Lt. Ryan Stenhouse, an EMT for Tualatin Valley, was among the volunteers who signed up for the program.
“I got into this business because I want to help people,” Stenhouse said. “I want to make a difference not only in the community where I work but also in the community that I live in and the communities that I travel in.”
He’s not worried about working around the clock. The firefighters don’t have to respond if they’re sleeping, for example, or if another reason prevents them from jumping in.
Brawner was available that morning of May 2014 when Basse suffered sudden cardiac arrest.
A security guard at 24-Hour Fitness in Clackamas called 911 and a dispatcher alerted PulsePoint.
The app identified Brawner as the closest to the scene and sent him a notification. At the time, Brawner was on a treadmill. The app stopped his Pandora Radio stream, told him there was a need for CPR nearby and showed him a Google map of the building he was in and the location of the victim.
It was Brawner’s first off-duty alert.
He raced to the parking lot where he found Basse in the car and the door open. He was unconscious, had no pulse and wasn’t breathing.
“Without quick intervention of CPR, Drew would not be alive today,” Brawner said. “He would not have survived that cardiac event.”
Brawner got him out of the car and started performing high-performance CPR, or fast chest compressions, to get the blood flowing. He kept it up until the ambulance showed up about three to four minutes later.
Basse, now 60, will have lifelong effects from the event. He lost brain tissue because it was a few minutes before the security guard noticed he was slumped and called 911. A truck driver, he was forced to go on disability. He still can’t sleep and can’t remember the last 30 years of his life.
But when he talks about that day, he grins ear to ear. He’s alive and has a new friend.
“We’re best friends now,” Basse said.
And Brawner has a memory he’ll treasure forever.
“It’s been one of the best things in my 37-year career as a paramedic to resuscitate someone in my day off and then meet his family and his grandchildren,” Brawner said. “It’s a life-changing thing to have happen to somebody.”
Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue responded to 231 cardiac arrests in 2015. Twenty-four people survived and were discharged from the hospital.
That survival rate is about average for the Portland area, said Dr. Mo Daya, medical director of the fire department.
Rates are higher in Seattle and Rochester, Minnesota, where the Mayo Clinic is located. Daya expects the program to improve Portland’s rate.
“You’re creating an army of trained individuals to basically deliver the key interventions that can save lives,” Daya said.
— Lynne Terry
lterry@oregonian.com
@LynnePDX
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