Medical first responders in Northville Township have dramatically improved their ability to revive victims of cardiac arrest and help them return to normal lives.
In the past 12 months, Northville Township Fire Department paramedics have restored pulses to 19 of 28 patients who were in full cardiac arrest — that is, who had no pulse and were not breathing. That success rate, nearly 68 percent, is more than double the Michigan and national rates, according to Fire Chief Brent Siegel.
Of those 28, seven, or 25 percent, were eventually discharged from a hospital with "no deficits," said Siegel, meaning they had no loss of brain function and were able to resume the quality of life they had before they were stricken. That rate is also more than twice the reported U.S. and Michigan successful discharge rates, the chief said; according to the American Heart Association, nearly 90 percent of people who experience cardiac arrest outside of a hospital die from it.