Below is an excerpt from the fascinating feature in Fairfax media's Good Weekend about the thunderstorm asthma event that hit Melbourne in November and the exceptional response by Sunshine and Footscray Hospital's Emergency Departments and Ambulance Victoria.
Western Health notes that the feature refers to a patient who was transferred to Footscray Hospital Intensive Care Unit (ICU) from the Footscray Hospital Emergency Department (ED) in order to be intubated. In fact, the patient was successfully intubated in the ED by Dr Karen Winter and then transferred to ICU for ongoing intensive care.
Thunderstorm asthma: The night a deadly storm took Melbourne's breath away.
She is sweaty and her chest is heaving when the paramedics come into her cramped, baking bedroom in the back of a house in Melbourne's outer-west. She sits cross-legged on the bed, hands on her knees, lips pursed, every breath a mountain to climb. It is 6.11pm on Monday, November 21, 2016. She feels like she's suffocating. She thinks she might be about to die.
"Asthma, Code 1, time-critical," was what the emergency call dispatcher said over the radio. Lights and sirens. Now, paramedic Scott Drysdale listens to Jackie Falzon's chest, measures her oxygen saturation levels (how much oxygen her blood is carrying) – 89 per cent is bad news – and slams a nebuliser mask onto her face, delivering a combination of oxygen, Ventolin and Atrovent to dilate the airways in her lungs. Her breathing improves momentarily before crashing again.
The young mother's words wheeze out between gasping breaths. "I'm ... going ... to ... die," she says. "I … cannot … breathe ... I … know ... this … is ... my ... last ... moment."
Click here to continue reading the full story via The Age
