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No rest for Global Rescue medics, even at trade shows

A 70-year-old man who collapsed from congestive heart failure at the Dallas Safari Club’s annual convention over the weekend at least did so in good company: at a show attended by Global Rescue.

A 70-year-old man who collapsed from congestive heart failure at the Dallas Safari Club’s annual convention over the weekend at least did so in good company: at a show attended by Global Rescue.
 
In the middle of a busy trade show day, a voice came over the public address system asking for a doctor to respond to a medical emergency. A man had slumped over in the elevator while returning from a cigarette break, and those around him had propped him in a chair. The bystanders pointed fingers at other onlookers and directed them to call EMS, while one of them futilely fanned the man’s pale, sweating face.
 
A Global Rescue critical care paramedic who had been manning the company’s booth, heard the announcement and instinctively went for the defibrillator mounted on a wall around the corner.
“I always make a mental note of where they are anytime I walk by one,” he recalled later. As the crowd of onlookers stepped aside, the medic opened the man’s shirt, attached the leads of the machine to his chest in the event he needed to be revived, and then took his blood pressure and other vital signs.
 
A Dallas-area ambulance team arrived after approximately 10-minutes, and the medic transferred the patient into their care.The paramedic received the man’s phone number from one of the latter’s friends, and a follow-up call the next day revealed that he was recovering nicely.