Life-saving heart attack treatment is used in Coral Gables

The City of Coral Gables Fire Department has successfully implemented a cutting edge life-saving technique to treat heart attack patients. For the past year, Gables paramedics responding to patients suffering a heart attack have been administering ice-cold saline intravenously to induce hypothermia.

The technique cools down a person's body temperature to minimize neurological damage to the brain and other organs. Patients not only improve their chances of survival but those who do survive sustain minimal damage and are able to return to their normal lifestyle.

Since its implementation on October 2008, out of the 12 patients who met the criteria for the procedure, five were saved and now are living productive lives. The national average for surviving a full cardiac arrest is 7 percent; in Coral Gables the average jumps to 40 percent.

The Coral Gables fire department wrote the protocol for inducing hypothermia in heart attack patients and was one of only a handful of departments nationwide to implement the new program. Currently, all of the City's rescue trucks are fully equipped with a freezer to store the life-saving saline solution.