On April 6, 2014, just after 11:30 p.m., a medical emergency was detected at the Hernando County Detention Center.
According to police, at approximately 11:32 p.m., Deputy J. Baker notified nursing staff via the radio of an unresponsive inmate on the floor in the Alpha 500 unit.
The male inmate was observed to be lying on the floor of his cell. He was unresponsive to medical staff; his face was dark purple in color. It was determined that just prior to the medical episode, the inmate was doing push-ups inside the cell.
Nurses immediately attended to the inmate and determined that he was not breathing and did not have a pulse. Fire/Rescue was requested to respond.
CPR was promptly started, and the AED was applied to the inmate by Detention Center staff.
During the course of CPR compressions and after two shock cycles of the AED, the inmate began to regain consciousness.
Hernando County Fire/Rescue arrived on scene and further evaluated the inmate/patient. He was then transported to a local hospital for additional advanced care. A Detention Deputy escorted the inmate to and remains with the inmate at the hospital.
Once at the hospital, the inmate was diagnosed with post Cardiac Arrest. Review of the AED recording data indicates the inmate had a Ventricular Fibrillation (VF). This reading alerted the operator of the AED at the Detention Center to shock the inmate. According to PubMed health at the US National Library of Medicine in the A.D.A.M medical encyclopedia from June 22, 2012, VF will lead to death within a few minutes unless it is treated quickly and effectively.
The staff at the Hernando County Detention Center did am amazing job both recognizing and reacting to this man’s life threatening medical condition.
