ST. PAUL, Minn. — More than 800,000 Americans suffer a heart attack every year and about half do not survive.
However, a machine that increases survival is becoming increasingly available at Regions Hospital.
For people like Mark Hammersness, this technology will be life-changing.
A sunny September day quickly turned dark for Hammersness.
“While I was mowing the lawn, I could feel chest pain,” Hammersness said.
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Hammersness had a heart attack in his driveway
“The survival rate for a heart attack like the one I had is less than 10%, so I’m lucky to be here,” said Hammersness.
Hammersness was rushed to Regions Hospital and operated on, where doctors placed two stents in his blood vessels. Dr. Charles Bruen, a doctor who provided care at Hammersness, remembers the incident well.
“He would go into cardiac arrest again and again and we would shock him, he would recover and go into cardiac arrest again,” Bruen said.
Then Hammersness was put on this ECMO machine to give his body the time it needed to rest and get stronger.
ECMO stands for Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation.
“That saved my life. Without that ECMO I wouldn’t be here today,” Hammersness said.
This machine gives critical patients more time by supporting their heart and lung functions so that the organs can recover.
“It removes patients’ blood through a vein, pushes it through a pump to create a pumping action and through an artificial lung that both oxygenates the blood and removes carbon dioxide and returns that to the patient,” Bruen said.
Bruen says that starting April 1, Regions will have full options to serve patients in the hospital without transferring them elsewhere for care.
“We can support them by giving them time to let their organs recover,” Bruen said.
And that’s exactly what ECMO gave Hammersness: time to heal.
“I’ve had a great recovery and I’m doing everything I did before,” Hammersness said.
Now he spends that time traveling around the world, and it’s all thanks to this machine and his care team.
