Auto-Pulse Resuscitation System

"Device Enables In-Flight CPR"

Excerpted from the Fairbanks Daily News Miner

Issue Monday, June 14, 2004

Staff writer, Tim Mowry

Giving cardio-pulmonary resuscitation to someone in the back of an air ambulance is not easy.

“If you give us a cardiac arrest patient in the back of a small airplane and there are two (medics) in place, you need one medic to secure the airway and operate the ventilator, and one medic to perform CPR,” said David Allen, air ambulance director for Warbelow’s Air Ventures, Inc. in Fairbanks. “So who’s going to start IVs and give medications?”

That won’t be a problem for the interior’s privately owned air ambulance any longer.  Now, CPR is just the press of a button away.

Warbelow’s recently purchased an Auto-Pulse Resuscitation System; a mechanical device that straps around a patient’s chest and automatically performs CPR better than any human can manually.

“This is absolutely something else,” said Allen, as he watched the Auto-Pulse perform chest compressions on a dummy torso at Pike’s Waterfront Lodge on Saturday morning.

“Now, one medic secures the airway and operates the ventilator,” he said.  “Now both medics are free to assess the situation and give medication.”

Warbelow’s bought the external heart pump from Revivant/Zoll Corp.  A representative from the Sunnyvale, Calif., company was in Fairbanks on Friday to demonstrate the device for local emergency medical departments.

“We’re literally bringing people back from the dead,” said Revivant’s Greg Wismer.

Sudden cardiac arrest is the leading cause of unexpected death in the world.  In the United States, more than 400,000 people suffer a cardiac arrest each year and 95 percent of those people die.

The Auto-Pulse is a 2-inch thick board containing a motor, which fits under the back of the patient, and an 8-inch wide belt is strapped across the person’s chest.  It runs on a rechargeable battery and weighs only 26 pounds.

Studies have shown that conventional CPR is only about 30 percent effective and that rescuers become fatigued as quickly as several minutes after beginning the life-saving technique.

Developed by cardiologist Thomas Fogarty at Stanford University, the Auto-Pulse can produce 80 compressions per minute for 30 – 60 minutes per battery.

The device is designed to squeeze the chest cavity 2-inches and simulates the chest compressions performed by emergency medical personnel.  It pauses every 15 compressions and can be used on anyone with a chest ranging from 30 to 51 inches.

“It’s consistent,” said Mike Wagner, a flight paramedic with Warbelow’s air ambulance, after watching the Auto-Pulse perform Saturday.  “It’s very difficult for even experienced people to get perfectly consistent compressions.”

“The Auto-Pulse is set up, both financially and medically, with Automatic Electronic Defibrillators (AED’s), in mind.  These devices are becoming more and more popular”, said Wismer.  “These two medical devices combined will be an outstanding advancement in patient care.”

 The Auto-Pulse is basically an external heart pump that keeps the heart pumping and blood flowing while emergency medical personnel attempt to get the heart beating normally.  Keeping the blood flowing helps provide oxygen to the brain and other organs, which plays a critical role in reviving a cardiac arrest victim.

“Revivant has spent $30 million developing and testing the Auto-Pulse,” said Wismer.

Researchers at Stanford University tested the Auto-Pulse on pigs, which have a similar anatomy to adults, said Wismer.  Researchers induced 32 pigs with heart attacks and waited eight minutes – the normal downtime for someone who has a cardiac arrest – before beginning resuscitation efforts with the Auto-Pulse and by conventional CPR.  None of the 10 pigs that received conventional CPR survived while 17 of 22 pigs that received treatment with the Auto-Pulse survived.

The device has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and has been on the market for less than a year but Revivant/Zoll already has several testimonials from people who have been revived by the Auto-Pulse.

While Warbelow’s air ambulance doesn’t deal with many cardiac arrest patients, the flight service is upgrading to the critical-care level with inter-hospital transport to Anchorage/Seattle and Allen figured it would be a good idea to have an Auto-Pulse on board.

“Even if I never have to use it, if I were instrumental in getting it here and getting people to use it, I’ll be satisfied,” said Allen.  “In a few years these things will be everywhere.”

The Fairbanks flight service will also be cold-weather-testing the machine for Revivant/Zoll.

BACK to Equipment page