Martin County EMS updates cardiac arrest response protocol

Martin County EMS updates cardiac arrest response protocol

The Martin County EMS team is adopting a new set of protocols when responding to cardiac arrest calls.

This comes more than a year after Martin General Hospital closed its doors in August 2023.

EMS clinicians do more than just transport a patient to the hospital, especially when the nearest emergency room is more than 20 miles away.

“We always think of the ambulances as the important thing, but it’s not. It’s the EMS clinicians that save lives,” said Martin County EMS Medical Director Dr. Bryan Kitch.

Martin County EMS, in a letter to residents, said that they will be changing their protocol when responding to cardiac arrest calls.

Initially, EMS clinicians would perform CPR while transporting the patient to the hospital, but now they will be using the “Pit Crew CPR” practice and will treat patients who are experiencing cardiac arrest at the scene.

“Transporting a patient in cardiac arrest and doing CPR in an ambulance is dangerous and quite frankly doesn’t really work,” said Dr. Kitch.

Dr. Kitch said the decision to update the protocol was necessary, especially since there is no longer a hospital in Martin County after Martin General shut down last August.

“Now, we can stay on scene, perform high-quality CPR, do things that matter, save lives and hopefully have more people go home to their families at the end of the day,” said Dr. Kitch.

Residents are pleased to hear that such a change is being implemented immediately.

“It’ll save more lives because a lot of people have passed because they didn’t make it to the hospital, so I think that’s a great idea,” said Martin County resident Nora Speller.

The community also hopes that this decision will one day bring more opportunities to improve healthcare in Martin County.

“Maybe, sooner or later, they’ll work on getting the hospital back. If not the whole hospital, then the emergency room,” said Speller. “They could make it to the emergency room until they can get them somewhere else.”

WITN reported back in May that Martin County officials were working with consulting firm Ascendient to potentially reopen Martin General as a rural emergency hospital.

However, before anything can be set in stone, several factors, like the state of the building, must be weighed by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

The Martin County EMS team also encourages the community to take CPR classes to improve patient outcomes and save the lives of loved ones.