News

Bottineau Ambulance Service receives an AutoPulse machine

By Scott Wagar

08/27/2013

The Bottineau Ambulance Service has acquired a new piece of equipment which will assist EMTs while caring for individuals who are suffering from a heart attack or a Segmented Elevation Myocardial Infarction (STEMI).

The machine is called an AutoPulse and is a portable, battery-operated, automated cardiopulmonary resuscitation device. The machine provides chest compressions through a half backboard and constricting band that goes over the chest and simulates CPR’s advanced cardiac life support.

“The AutoPulse is a great piece of equipment,” said Chris Dubois, a member of the Bottineau Ambulance Service. “We’re hoping to improve the chances of survival during a STEMI or heart attack.”

When an individual has a heart attack or STEMI, he or she is placed on the half backboard and the constriction band goes around the chest. Once on the backboard, EMTs pushes a button, the patient is weighed by the backboard, the computer inside the backboard sends a message to the band about the patient’s weight, and then instructs the band on how hard the compressions should be. The AutoPulse then compresses for 30 seconds and then stops, granting medical personnel to perform artificial respiration if EMTs term it necessary.

From there, the cycle is repeated.   

“The AutoPulse is way more consistent and moves more blood than manual compressions,” Dubois said. “Manual compression gives the body a 10 to 20 percent blood flow and the brain 30 to 40 percent. The AutoPulse will double that and hopefully save more peoples lives.

“The AutoPulse also mimics no-flow time,” Dubois continued to state. “It lets us as rescuers provide other life saving measures while it does compression. So, instead of the rescuers doing the pushing, the equipment does it all, that way rescuers can be pushing drugs, sticking tubes in or shocking a person. The rescuers don’t have to worry about the pushing because the AutoPulse is always constant and pushes at the top and the sides. It does it all.”

Dubois added that the machine works so well that it circulates blood as close as a normally functioning heart does. It also allows veins, which shrink and disappear during a heart attack or STEMI, to come to the surface and stand out, allowing EMTs to have good, strong veins to work with while making attempts to rescue people.

The AutoPulse was purchased through support and donations from the local community.

Presently, the ambulance service has three ambulances, so the ambulance crew is working on a grant in hopes of supplying all their rescue trucks with an AutoPulse device.

For now, the new device the ambulance members have has just increased the chances for individuals to survive a heart attack or STEMI.