Kate was saved from certain death with a novel, hi-tech approach to CPR. Picture: Brendan Beckett, Herald Sun

12 November 2024

Austin Health has commenced a new high-tech approach to cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), which has resulted in several patients being resuscitated after “certain death” in the last three months.

These patients all experienced sudden cardiac arrests outside of hospital and Austin Health clinicians were able to save their lives by the novel use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), a machine that can supply oxygenated blood to the body, taking over heart and lung function for a patient.

“Essentially, this machine puts the patient on full life support and buys us time. It takes blood out of the body, oxygenates the blood, and then pumps it back into the body, taking over completely from the heart and lungs. By doing this, we can keep the patient alive while we work on what’s caused the cardiac arrest,” says Dr Caleb Fisher, ICU specialist at the Austin Hospital and Director of ECMO Service.

One of these patients was 41-year-old Kate, who went into cardiac arrest in June and was rushed to Austin Hospital. 

Kate’s heart had stopped beating when she arrived in hospital and she was placed on ECMO, which completely took over heart and lung function. Doctors discovered the cause of her cardiac arrest; a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in a major artery blocking blood flow to her lungs. Treatment for this was started and Kate was in was a coma for 10 days, then recovered at Austin Health.

“This is an extraordinary save by the Austin ECMO team. In many respects, this patient had died and was resuscitated by a specially trained Austin ICU (intensive care unit) crew working collaboratively with our ED colleagues, along with our paramedic, cardiac surgery, and anaesthetic colleagues,” Dr Fisher says.

Kate is now feeling well and back at home, caring for her young son. She experiences some fatigue, but her brain and physical functions are back to normal. She says she feels lucky to have recovered so quickly when “the odds were stacked against me”.

Since commencing the ECMO program 12 months ago, Austin Health has used the technique on six patients in cardiac arrest. These patients had zero chance of survival and without the use of
ECMO they would have been pronounced dead. Incredibly, the Austin ECMO team was able to revive three of them, resulting in a one in two chance of survival and return to a normal life.

ECMO has a wide range of applications because it provides a period of heart and lung support to give a patient's organs time to recover. For example, it can be provided for heart failure, respiratory failure, and around the time of cardiac surgery. For some patients with cardiac arrest, it can be rapidly applied while CPR is underway and ensures the delivery of oxygen to the person’s brain and other vital organs long enough for the heart to be restarted; this process is called ‘ECMO CPR’ or ‘ECPR’.

Austin Health is an inaugural member of the Victorian ECMO Service (VECMOS) that with, Ambulance Victoria, co-ordinates the statewide service for ECPR.

“This is an exciting development for all our critical care services – this technology is saving lives right now, and we hope will save many more in the future,” says Dr Fisher.