MNF scare resonated with new councilman

Jan. 12—Newly sworn-in Mesa councilman and firefighter Dr. Scott Somers was watching the Jan. 3 Buffalo Bills game inside a fire station when Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed after a tackle.

As a long-time paramedic and ardent Bills fans (Somers originally hails from Rochester, an hour from Buffalo), he watched the crisis unfold with a keen eye.

"We're sitting there with friends of mine, who are paramedics, too, and we're like, 'boy, he's not getting up,' and we all started saying the same thing — 'I think he's having a cardiac event' and hoping that the ambulance comes out on the field."

Emergency medics at the game determined Hamlin experienced cardiac arrest and began life-saving measures. An ambulance came on the field within five minutes.

"I was pleased to see how quickly the cardiac incident was recognized and paramedics and physicians there were called onto the field," Somers said. "They did the right thing in administering CPR and early defibrillation, because early defibrillation, CPR is key to survival."

Reports stated that medics were able to restart the player's heart before he was transferred to intensive care at a local hospital, where he remained in critical condition at press time.

Because time is so critical during cardiac incidents, Somers advocated for the installation of automated external defibrillators in city buildings and venues during his previous two terms on the council, between 2006 and 2014.

Sometimes hearts stop pumping blood because of a problem with the electrical signals creating a normal rhythm.

An AED is a portable electrical device that can restore a normal rhythm in certain conditions.

The machine is used alongside CPR and analyzes the heart rhythm and determines if an electrical shock is needed.

CPR classes include training on the use of AEDs, which are designed to be simple to use in an emergency.

Mesa currently has about 150 installed in city facilities.

A public information officer for Mesa said there has been at least one save using a city-installed AED, in 2017. A spectator at an event collapsed and one of the bystanders helping the man ran into an office and grabbed an AED.

Somers said the city prioritized the installation of AED at Parks and Recreation facilities.

"We wanted to make sure that if there was a cardiac event for one of our athletes playing on our fields, that they had rapid access to that early defibrillation," Somers said.

During a cardiac arrest, "we're fighting the clock," he added. "We have 10 minutes in a cardiac arrest before somebody starts to have irreversible cardiac damage and brain damage."

"To get somebody not just to live, but to thrive after this event, early CPR as soon as it's recognized, and application of an AED increases our success rate of saving lives," he said.