Pemberton Health Centre staff pull out all the stops for ‘miracle’ patient

“I’m not a religious person, but this was kind of like a miracle. I really don’t know how else to describe it.”

You don’t normally hear a physician utter these words, but that’s how Dr. Jim Fuller, Pemberton’s Medical Director, described what happened to a patient who came through the Pemberton Health Centre’s doors in late summer.

John’s story

While out on his usual Saturday mountain bike ride in Pemberton this past August, John Evenson was almost home when he passed out and fell off his bike.

A neighbour luckily happened upon him and walked him home. His wife Kim whisked him straight to the Pemberton Health Centre where he presented with a broken clavicle.

Soon after arriving, John complained of chest pains and was wheeled into the resus room where he went into cardiac arrest. Staff started CPR which they continued for an unusually long 90 minutes. A Vancouver cardiologist, who was on the phone guiding staff to get him ready to be helivaced, told them not to stop.

Prior to this incident John, who is in his early 50s, had no indications of heart problems or any health issue for that matter.

Kim, who stayed in the resus room, remained “cool as a cucumber,” recalls Jim, who along with half the clinic staff, were called into work on their time off.

Team effort

“We just dropped what we were doing and raced to work,” says Jim. “That’s the beauty of being in a small community. We really do look out for each other.”

Kim stood by John’s head, continuously talking to him, telling him, “It’s not your time to go. I love you.”

After 45 minutes of ventricular fibrillation, John’s heart rhythm changed to PEA (pulseless electrical activity).

“He had no pulse so we continued the resuscitation and gave him epinephrine every three minutes, which we luckily had extra on hand that day,” says Jim.

“After an hour and a half, we were going to call off the resus attempt, but I checked his pulse again one last time and to my absolute surprise, he had a pulse. At this point we stopped CPR and did supportive measures while we waited for him to be helivaced to St. Paul’s Hospital.”

Jim was unsure of John’s future when he was flown down to Vancouver. “After such a prolonged downtime we thought he’d have irreversible brain damage.”

Kim and her two children are beyond grateful for the Pemberton medical staff’s efforts as well as the team at St. Paul’s.

“The Pemberton medical team saved his life by never giving up and doing 90 minutes of CPR on him,” Kim says. “Had he not been in the clinic he would not be here with his family today.”

After surgery at St. Paul’s Hospital, the cardiologist informed the couple that John had a type of heart attack knows as “the widow maker,” which is common in men between 50 and 60. A large blood clot had plugged in the main artery of John’s heart – depriving about half of his heart muscle of the oxygen it needed to continue beating.

Two and a half weeks after his accident and surgery, John visited the Health Centre – walking and talking normally.

“I wanted to touch him to see if he was real,” says Jim. “Other than a bit of short-term memory loss, he was fine.  In my entire career, I’ve never seen someone recover as well as John did from such a prolonged resuscitation attempt. But what I think is very special is his wife, who was in the resus room the whole time we were working on him, telling him it wasn’t his time to go, that she still needed him and loved him.”

On the road to recovery

John’s clavicle hasn’t fully healed, but he is making progress with his heart health, riding a stationary bike for 55 minutes every day and being closely monitored by doctors.

There will be no skiing this winter or mountain biking until the clavicle is fully healed. In the meantime, John remains forever grateful to the staff at the Pemberton Health Centre.

“They are awesome,” says John. “I can’t say enough about them. They saved my life. They kept going and going and it paid off.”

John and Kim also extend their thanks to the staff at St. Paul’s.