This is a rescue video of sudden ventricular fibrillation in patients with myocardial infarction.
Hearing the shrieks of the patients in the video, everyone may feel heartache and lament Guo Laobo’s misfortune. However, as the patient’s attending doctor, I would like to say:
How lucky this patient is!
This Guo Laobo, because of a sudden myocardial infarction (myocardial infarction), was pushed into the interventional operating room of our hospital. When cardiac interventional surgery was about to begin, he suddenly developed ventricular fibrillation!
All the medical staff present immediately became nervous…….
Why is myocardial infarction dangerous?
The heart is an organ that pumps blood to the whole body, just like an engine, pumping blood to all parts of the body. When the engine is abnormal, the precise machine of the human body cannot operate normally.
So who supplies blood to the heart?
It is the coronary artery, which, like a hat, is distributed all over the heart. With each beating of the heart, some blood flow will also flow into the coronary artery and then flow to all parts of the heart along various branches to ensure the nutrition of the myocardium and maintain the operation of the heart.
Coronary artery is said to be the “life artery” of human beings, while myocardial infarction [breaks] the life artery.
When the coronary artery stops flowing, the myocardium it nourishes will become ischemic.
We often compare the heart to a house and the myocardium to the wall of the house. The ischemic myocardium is a wall that may collapse at any time. The affected heart may stop beating at any time, and the patient’s life is on the verge of collapse at any time.
After myocardial infarction occurs, the most obvious feeling of the patient is pain. Typical myocardial infarction pain is one of the most severe pains that people can feel, and accompanied by the fear of dying. The most common feeling is chest pain, which may also be stomachache, back pain, arm pain, sore throat, toothache…
Every time a suspected myocardial infarction patient is found, it is like death. What our doctors have to do is race against death, grab the front and rescue the patient back.
After myocardial infarction, the last thing doctors want is ventricular fibrillation.
Ventricular fibrillation is deadly
The beating of the heart is regular. In a normal heartbeat, the atrium first pushes blood into the ventricle, and then the ventricle contracts again, pumping blood into the whole body like a water pump. This series of actions are all directed by nerves, just like the electrical circuits and communication systems of the house, which arrange the activities of the heart in an orderly way.
After myocardial infarction occurs, it is as if the wall of the house of the heart has decayed. The circuits in the house are likely to be disturbed, generating various kinds of messy currents. The normal currents transmitted by the headquarters are seriously disturbed and the whole system is invalid.
Without the command, the heart may jump indiscriminately and various arrhythmia will occur. Ventricular fibrillation is the most dangerous one.
Ventricular fibrillation, also known as ventricular fibrillation, the ventricle should have regular and powerful beating, at this time turned into a blind trembling general chaos, there is no way to transport blood out.
What if ventricular fibrillation occurs?
Once ventricular fibrillation occurs, electric shock defibrillation is the most effective and fastest method for the patient’s heart to resume effective beating.
After Guo Laobo suffered from ventricular fibrillation, the doctors immediately pushed a machine, grabbed two black handle-like electrode plates and placed them on Guo Laobo’s chest. This is what the doctors call a defibrillator.
The so-called electric defibrillation is to give the heart a powerful external electric shock, first stop all kinds of disordered currents in the circuit, and give the normal current a chance to convey. If the normal current can take this opportunity to conduct the myocardium, the heart can resume effective beating, continue to supply blood to the whole body, and the patient can temporarily get out of danger.
It seems to be a very simple process, but it is actually full of crises:
The patient’s heart may stop beating at any time and brain tissue may die at any time.
In this case, one second cannot be delayed. If the patient’s heartbeat returns to normal one second earlier, the patient will have one more point to survive the death.
Anything that may distract doctors and delay handling, even if it is only a few seconds, may cause irreparable consequences to patients.
Does electric shock defibrillation hurt? Why do patients scream?
Everyone should not have experienced electric defibrillation, but one can imagine the scene when the body is shocked. It must be very painful to be shocked.
For electric shock defibrillation treatment of patients, we have a very standard anesthesia procedure, which will definitely make patients feel little pain. But the premise is:
Time permitting.
Guo Laobo’s ventricular fibrillation occurred very suddenly. Rescue must race against time. There was really no time for anesthesia. Second, his abnormality was discovered too timely. His brain had not yet suffered from obvious ischemia, various functions of the brain still existed, and his consciousness had not been completely lost. Under the stimulation of electric shock, the patient could still feel pain, so he sent out bursts of screams…….
At this time, it is not our doctors who turn a blind eye, but there are more important things to do:
Save the patient’s life.
First of all, we must restore the normal heartbeat of the patient, start stent surgery in time, open the blocked blood vessels and relieve the ischemic state of the heart, so as to pull the patient back from the edge of death.
Normal cardiac stenting is [painless] [minimally invasive]. Patients may feel slightly heavier pain than normal infusion, and the vast majority of patients can endure these pains.
[We don’t understand…]
When the family members say [we don’t understand, they (doctors) have a reason to say anything anyway], we can understand their [don’t understand].
Because, the danger among them, they cannot feel without medical knowledge.
If the patient does not have ventricular fibrillation, according to the normal procedure, anesthesia should be performed first, and the patient will not suffer such pain. However, the disease condition changes rapidly. If anesthesia is performed first and then rescue is performed, the life will probably not be saved.
Doctors also have a day when they become the family members of patients. We all know the anxious mood of the family members.
However, it is a tough battle to snatch a life with death.
Why not let the family members in during the rescue?
To make an inappropriate analogy, it is like a cook who does not want others to add chaos when cooking.
Rescuing patients is a more urgent and complicated matter. Any problem in any link may delay the lives of patients.
If the family members are present at the scene, they may act irrationally and affect the order of rescue. The ultimate victim is their relatives.
It is not deliberately depriving the family members of their right to know, but the matter is urgent and the life of the patient is the most important thing.
As you can see, when the patient’s condition stabilized, we explained the patient’s condition to the family members as soon as possible.
As doctors, when the patient is in danger, we are more anxious than the family members and hope that the patient is safe. They do not want to see their families suffer. We can understand such overreaction.
I wrote this article in the hope of avoiding this misunderstanding. If everyone has some basic medical knowledge, better communication between doctors and patients can also increase trust.
Trust and understanding are easier said than done. There is still a long way to go to rebuild trust between doctors and patients.