In November, Nicholas Smith was given a one-percent chance of survival by a hospital physician after he suffered a cardiac arrest at his home in Clearwater.

On February 1st  Nic and his fiancé Ryen visited Sunstar to meet the first responders who helped save his life.

” I had to hold back my emotions as best I could,” Smith said after meeting the paramedics and EMTs from Sunstar and Clearwater Fire & Rescue.

Smith had survived cancer two years ago but the effects of the chemotherapy may have caused some damage to his heart. He knew something was not right for awhile.

He collapsed and went into cardiac arrest at his Clearwater apartment on November 17. “Everything started going black, I went down on a knee and started covering my head up and fell,” Smith said.

Ryen Hauck, Smith’s fiancé, dialed 911 and started CPR, even though she had never taken a CPR class before. The 911 operator talked her through the procedures and coached her as she worked on Nic for approximately six minutes before EMS arrived. She added, “It was definitely the scariest moment of my entire life and seemed like eternity”.

Although Nic’s condition was grave the crew never gave up on him. They spent twenty minutes at his home trying to revive Nic before they moved to the ambulance.

Once en-route to the hospital, paramedic Christopher Fogarty recognized that Smith went into a rare heart arrhythmia that would need a special medication to correct it.  Fogarty asked the medic from the fire department to administer magnesium sulfate to their patient. They saw a regular rhythm return on the monitor and checked for a pulse. Smith had a return of circulation.

They delivered Nicholas Smith to the hospital with a good chance of survival.

Eleven days later he was discharged from the hospital with hope of returning to a normal life again.

“The amount of gratitude is so immense, it is almost impossible to find words that fit,” Smith said after meeting the responders who helped save his life. He went onto say how every person should learn CPR, “Even if you use it one time, even if you never use it, it’s a skill worth having,” Smith said.

Dr. Robert Sanchez of the American Heart Association added”For every minute you delay CPR, survival goes down 10%, but if you do CPR you double or triple chances of survival.”

February is American Heart Month. The American Heart Association has committed to training 150,000 people how to do CPR by June 2017. Sunstar Paramedics offers free Friends and Family CPR. You can find out more about our classes by clicking here: http://www.sunstarems.com/public-safety/aha-and-cpr-courses/

http://www.abcactionnews.com/news/cpr-saves-clearwater-mans-life