On 21 September, an 8-year-old boy almost lost his life to a life-threatening condition after his heart had stopped beating. Thankfully, a team of dedicated medical personnel took turns to perform CPR for five hours until another team of experts arrived. This nerve-wracking incident took place at a hospital in Jiangsu, China.
Source: Seehua
According to Seehua, the patient named Xiao Yu had suffered from a stomach ache and was diagnosed with gastroenteritis. A few days later, his condition became worse after having an irregular heartbeat, low blood pressure, a seizure and cardiac arrest. He was then diagnosed with fulminant myocarditis, a heart condition caused by a virus.
Xiao Yu was rushed to a children’s hospital and an experienced paediatrician knew that the boy needed extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) treatment if he was to make it.
So, the doctor contacted another children’s hospital in Shanghai, requesting help from the ECMO team and their equipment. The problem they had, however, was that it would take the team a few hours to get to Jiangsu with land transportation.
While the ECMO team was on their way, Xiao Yu’s condition got worse and he had reportedly stopped breathing. With the team still hours away from the hospital, there was very little hope for the kid but the doctors weren’t ready to give up just yet.
The doctor then gathered some 30 medical personnel in the hospital including the director and deputy director to take turns performing CPR on Xiao Yu. Each person performed between 100 and 120 compressions in two minutes before another person took over.
Source: Seehua
This went on for 300 minutes, leaving all personnel drenched in sweat as every compression had to be done properly. It was estimated that over 30,000 compressions were completed in that five hours.
After a few hours, the ECMO team arrived and successfully stabilised the kid’s heart rate. He is now out of any life-threatening situation but he couldn’t be discharged yet for further observation and follow-up treatment.
Source: Seehua
After learning how close he was to death, Xiao Yu wrote a thank you note to all the medical personnel involved to express his heartfelt gratitude.
This is why a medical profession remains one of the noblest jobs in the world today. We wish Xiao Yu a speedy recovery and salute all the doctors for not giving up on the boy.
Also read: Selfless Doctor Sacrifices Seeing Dying Father One Last Time to Save Patient
