Grant: Operating Grant

A cardiac arrest occurs when the heart stops beating, and is a devastating event that often leads to death. Advances in resuscitation science have dramatically improved the number of patients that survive to be treated in a hospital, but more than half of these survivors still die during their hospitalization. Most patients are in a coma after the cardiac arrest, and many have severe brain damage caused by lack of blood flow during the cardiac arrest. We now know that we can often prevent this brain damage, and save more lives, by cooling a patient's body once they arrive in the hospital. However, our previous research has shown that cooling is often not applied soon enough, or even at all, in the Emergency Department. This research will test whether we can increase the number of patients that receive this life-saving treatment by having paramedics start the cooling process before the patient arrives at the hospital. We believe this research will lead to changes in how cardiac arrest survivors are treated in Canada, and improve their chances of surviving without any brain damage.