By Linda N. Weller
The Telegraph
ALTON, Ill. — A national morning news program will feature Alton paramedics as it touts the importance of contacting a doctor about light-headedness or passing out — which happened as one of the men drove an ambulance.
Fortunately, that July 22 incident on Illinois Route 3 at Pontoon Road ended safely, with doctors eventually diagnosing the stricken paramedic with an uncommon ailment usually present in much older people.
“If people ever feel light-headed, they should go to the doctor,” said Thom Groff, 52, of Alton, who saved the ambulance from crashing and tended to his co-worker, driver Forrest Finch, 42, of Wood River.
A reporter from the ABC morning show, “Good Morning America,” in New York City conducted a telephone interview Saturday with the men at a St. Louis hotel. A videographer from KDNL-TV Channel 30 in St. Louis filmed the interview.
“Good Morning America” also may air a videotape of the incident during the show, Finch said.
The feature had been scheduled to air Monday but now tentatively is supposed to run Wednesday — but remains subject to change, Finch said.
Groff said the men, who work at LifeStar Ambulances Services at 1002 Martin Luther King Drive in Alton, were taking a patient with a non-life-threatening condition to Gateway Regional Medical Center in Granite City in the early evening.
“During the drive, he changed lanes and went off the side of the road on the shoulder,” Groff said about Finch. “I tried to call his name a few times. He was slumped over, his head was to the side, and his hands were off the steering wheel.”
Groff slipped out of the rear, patient transport area into the cab, stopped the truck and turned his attention to Finch.
“I checked his blood pressure and put on the cardio monitor to make sure his heart hadn’t stopped,” Groff said. “His blood pressure slowly started coming back up.
“I wasn’t sure what to think,” he said. “I thought his blood sugar might have dropped, or he fell asleep on the steering wheel.”
Groff called for assistance, with other ambulances arriving to continue taking the patient and Finch on to Gateway.
“He shook me, and I came to,” Finch recalled. “I wasn’t sure what happened. The next thing I knew, we were stopped in the grass. It could have been real ugly.”
Finch said it was the first time he lost consciousness, but there were more such incidents to follow before doctors determined he has sick sinus syndrome.
“From July 28 to Sept. 3, I had 400 episodes when my heart rate dropped below 40" beats per minute, he said.
Normal adult resting heart rates range from 60 to 100 beats per minute, although fit athletes can have heart rates of 40 to 60 beats per minute.
Finch said a surgeon at Gateway implanted a cardiac monitor in his chest on July 28. The monitor subsequently was removed and replaced with a pacemaker, which uses electrical impulses to regulate the heartbeat.
Finch said he believes the manufacturer of the devices contacted “Good Morning America” staff about the incident and about the importance of people getting checked out if they have a dizzy spell or faint.
Both men played down the incident and being on television, despite how it could have ended tragically.
Sick sinus syndrome is uncommon but covers a variety of heart rhythm problems caused by the heart’s sinus node, which is the heart’s natural pacemaker, not working properly.
The node is in the upper right chamber of the heart, which controls the rhythm of the heart by producing electrical impulses. In the event of the syndrome, the impulses are irregular, and the resulting heart rhythms may be too fast, too slow or with long pauses, or a combination of the problems.
People with the syndrome may feel faint or fatigued, have a slow pulse, dizziness, chest pain, insomnia, confusion or heart palpitations.
Copyright 2009 The Telegraph
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News