Paramedics show off 'perfect' CPR machine at Regina EMS open house

A CPR machine that is pumping up the survival rate for cardiac arrests was on display when the Regina Emergency Medical Services held an open house on Saturday.

The facility opened its doors to the public to show off some of the new technology helping paramedics save lives.

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The main attraction was a "Lucas machine", which delivers "perfect" CPR with consistent depth and compression rates.

Ken Luciak, the EMS director for the Regina Qu'Appelle Health Region, said even highly-trained paramedics were not able to deliver CPR with the same precision as the machine.

"If you can imagine trying to do CPR on the move, from a house to an ambulance or downstairs, or even in the back of an ambulance to the hospital .. but still needing CPR all the time being done properly" said Luciak. "In a moving ambulance [it] is almost next to impossible."

Luciak said the machines, which are inside every Regina EMS ambulance, were also helping to improve survival rates.

Paramedics responded to 307 cardiac arrests — almost one per day — in 2016. Of those, 137 resuscitations were attempted and 28 patients were discharged alive and "neurologically intact."  

Luciak said the survival rate was 21 per cent, higher than it was in the past.

"There was a time, before we started making some of these changes, that we used to think that cardiac arrest patients had really no chance of survival," he said.

"And now that's changed considerably because of the type of things we are doing in the field."

The open house also provided tours of the facility and paramedics were on hand to answer questions.