Heart attack victim survives, with help from bystanders trained in CPR

February is Heart Health Month. What better way to acknowledge heart health than by recognizing the importance of bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)? Fast responses, knowledge of CPR and teamwork saved Amit Sethi, who collapsed from cardiac arrest while running the Evanston Flying Turkey 5K last November.

Health concerns

Sethi, a Brooklyn resident, was in Evanston to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family. For several Thanksgivings, he and other family members had run the Turkey Trot together. It was a highlight of the holiday weekend.

Sethi was under the care of a cardiologist. Within the past year he had learned his left anterior descending (LAD) artery was blocked. It supplies blood to the front of the left side of the heart. But his right coronary artery and the circumflex artery on the left side were supplying the area of the heart affected by the blocked artery.

In an email, Sethi wrote, “I was in pretty good shape before the race. Exercised every day, cardio and strength training, and ate what I thought was a healthy diet. I was mostly asymptomatic and my doctors and I were managing my heart issues with medicine, exercise, and diet.”

Sethi said, “I had a lot of what they call collateral arterial blood supply, so that the other arteries had started to supply the area of the heart that was denied, that would normally have been fed through that one artery.”

Surgery to unblock the LAD artery was risky because there was a chance it could pierce his heart. He was evaluating whether he should have the surgery and had scheduled an appointment for a second opinion. He passed a stress test “with flying colors,” according to his cardiologist.

A family tradition, then disaster

What Sethi did not know was cold weather adds strain to the heart by causing blood vessels to constrict. Constricted blood vessels can cause higher blood pressure, which in turn can lead to chest pains, heart attacks and strokes.

The course route differed from prior years due to construction at Northwestern University. Race participants started between 9 a.m. and 9:06 a.m. Nov. 28. Outside it was overcast. The temperature at the time was about 29 degrees with wind from the northwest at 10.4 miles per hour.

The family group, seven people in total, started the race and were running north on Orrington Avenue. Sethi’s brother-in-law, Peter Office, a Wilmette resident, said the younger members of the family had run ahead of the older ones, leaving Sethi, Sethi’s wife Judith and himself. Two miles into the race, at around 9:20 a.m., Sethi collapsed on the southwest corner of Orrington where it intersects Lincoln Street. Office was a short distance ahead. Judith, slightly behind Amit in the race, saw Amit on the ground and called Office, who immediately circled back. He saw emergency responders.

His brother-in-law was on his back getting CPR from other runners. Sethi was unconscious and not breathing; he had suffered a cardiac arrest.

CPR and quick action saved his life

Fortunately, the three runners who stepped up to help Sethi knew CPR. (One was an emergency physician.) They sprang into action without hesitation. A nearby Evanston Police Department detective, now sergeant, Mike Cameron, immediately called dispatch for an ambulance. Cameron continued communications and alerted the Evanston Fire Department that the patient was unresponsive.

Sgt. Scott Sophier and other police officers on the scene directed traffic, assisted with crowd control and cleared the space around Sethi so fire vehicles could get through. Evanston Fire Station #3 crews (Ambulance 23, Truck 23 and Engine 23) were on the scene within five minutes of the first call.

Once on the scene, two EFD paramedics took over the CPR. They intubated Sethi and injected him with adrenaline. The paramedics used an automated external defibrillator (AED) while the ambulance sped to Evanston Hospital, less than a mile away. Dr. Jonathan Rosenberg, an interventional cardiologist at Endeavor Health, was waiting and treated Sethi upon arrival. Rosenberg revived and stabilized Sethi. Later that night doctors transferred Sethi to Glenbrook Hospital where Endeavor’s Cardiovascular Institute is located.

Sethi regained consciousness three days later; he woke up in the dark in the cardiovascular ICU. He had no idea where he was or what had happened to him. Sethi was in pain and had tubes everywhere. In addition to the damage to his heart, he had acute kidney damage. There was a port in his neck for dialysis. Later, doctors would implant a tiny defibrillator in his chest to restart his heart if the same thing reoccurred.

All told, he was in the hospital for nearly five weeks.

Traumatic in every way

Sethi’s wife witnessed what happened to him, and his daughter was at the hospital immediately thereafter with the rest of the family. The RoundTable wanted to know, how are they doing? How is he doing?

Sethi said, “You know, it’s still an adjustment. I think we’re getting back to getting back to normal, but it’s still an adjustment. I’m still recovering, and we lost a lot of time. My daughter, even though she went home [to New York] for a little while, she came back. I think it disrupted her normal workflow. You know, she’s studying for the SATs, and it’s not the best environment to take a big milestone test like that.

“Yeah, as horrible of an experience as it was, there were a lot of very uplifting things to come out of it. Just the number of my friends and family who came out of the woodwork and were there to support me, came to visit in the hospital, was really, really uplifting and really reassuring. And I don’t think I realized the, you know, people are there in your corner for you. It takes something like this to kind of see them come out and really make it manifest.

“There was a lot of time where I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it. I think I was through the the hard part. I was out of the woods, but I still was unsure about what was the next step. So the fact that my friends and family wanted to come visit — it was really an emotional time. It was an emotional roller coaster.”

Importance of bystander CPR

On Feb. 15, Endeavor Health hosted a Bystander CPR/AED Community Training Event at Skokie Hospital to emphasize the importance of knowing how to perform CPR. Due to the Feb. 14 water main break in Skokie, the event was moved to Evanston Hospital. Sethi, Sophier, two of the EFD responders that day and Endeavor doctors and other health professionals who worked with Sethi were there along with Sethi’s family.

The family is grateful to everyone who cared for Sethi during that stressful and frightening time. They want to increase awareness of bystanders knowing CPR, one of the lifesaving factors that contributed to his recovery.

He said, “I wouldn’t have survived if there weren’t bystanders with CPR training who were ready to use it there immediately. The EMT team arrived promptly, quickly, but still, every second you don’t have blood flowing to your brain is vital. So I think I’ve come out with 99% functionally, but I know that it was a big worry, and I’m sure that it was traumatic for my wife, who was there watching it happen. But it’s better that there were people there who were ready to do it and perform CPR on me, even if it was hands-only CPR. it’s just so important that that kind of service, that kind of help, is available to somebody who has a cardiac event.”

The family has discussed trying to raise money to supply every Evanston police car with AED equipment. Often police cars are first on the scene so a faster response could make a difference. The American Heart Association says the odds for survival drop by 10% each minute without help.

Giving back with gratitude

Sethi’s daughter is interested in outreach to high school students. “In Illinois, it’s mandated that every high schooler learns CPR,” he said. “It’s not here in New York, so my daughter is thinking about taking on that initiative at her school. I know they have AED devices, but the kids aren’t all mandatorily trained. It’s still early … but we’re really excited about seeing what we can do and being a part of that effort.”

Sethi feels immense gratitude to the first responders, Capt. PJ Casey and Firefighters Vincent Puccini and Michael Storey, who saved his life. He said, “I had no interaction with the EMT responders until the event this past weekend. You don’t really interact with them unless you’re sick, and then when you’re sick, you don’t [interact] because you’re out of it. So it was nice to see them, and I felt like it was really good for me to get back and realize that these guys were, you know, they do it out of the goodness of their hearts. It’s an unpleasant job. And they seemed just as thrilled to see me as I was to see them, which I found really touching. Their eyes just lit up when they saw me. I feel so indebted to them in every way.”