Copyright 2005 Bangor Daily News
By AIMEE DOLLOFF
Bangor Daily News (Maine)
Firefighter and paramedic Mike Hildreth experienced something new last weekend. He brought a man back to life.
“That was the first time that’s ever happened to me,” Hildreth said Friday.
Hildreth responded around noon Saturday to a call for a man who was experiencing chest pain. While in the ambulance on the way to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, the patient “coded,” a technical term for “died.”
Hildreth used the defibrillator, better known as shock paddles, and while he and a paramedic student riding along to gain experience administered CPR, the man came to.
“The student was trying to help him breathe, and he started fighting it, which was great,” Hildreth said.
It’s uncommon for someone to come back after they code, he explained.
“We got lucky,” Hildreth said, adding that the last he heard, the patient was “doing pretty well.”
Modest in his accomplishment, Hildreth said he was just doing his job.
“I knew what had to be done, and I did it,” he said. “I was just doing my job; it was nothing spectacular. I’d do it for anybody.”
He said whoever decided the man needed to go to the hospital also should get some of the credit.
“All too often, people wait to see if [the pain] will go away,” he said.
Hildreth has been with the Old Town department for 61/2 years and also works part time at the Milford Fire Department.
“The city of Old Town has always taken pride, I think, in the fire department to push to have paramedics on our ambulance at all times,” Deputy Fire Chief Jim Lavoie said Friday. “When both ambulances go out, we have the highest level of care on the ambulance.”
He added that last weekend was a perfect example of why the department trains and sends its members to paramedic school. Lavoie also was pleased that a student and future paramedic was able to participate in the experience.
“It was obviously a great experience for that person, too, to see what the training is going to allow [them] to do down the road,” Lavoie said.