{"id":964,"date":"2015-03-19T16:38:24","date_gmt":"2015-03-19T20:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cooperhealth.org\/stories\/?p=964"},"modified":"2015-03-19T16:47:42","modified_gmt":"2015-03-19T20:47:42","slug":"dans-story-cardiac-arrest-and-the-transfer-that-saved-his-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cooperhealth.org\/stories\/2015\/03\/dans-story-cardiac-arrest-and-the-transfer-that-saved-his-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan\u2019s Story: Cardiac Arrest and the Transfer That Saved His Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

One evening while watching television with his wife, Betty, Dan Oliker took a strange, deep breath and fell limp. His heart had stopped; he was in cardiac arrest.<\/a><\/p>\n

Betty jumped up, called 911 and ran to get a neighbor to help administer CPR. Dan was taken by ambulance to a local hospital after paramedics worked to shock him back to life. He barely had a heartbeat when doctors told Betty, \u201cIt\u2019s in higher hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Betty knew better. She knew she had to get him to Cooper if he had any chance at all and pushed for the transfer. When Dan arrived at Cooper he was immediately taken to the cardiac catheterization lab where Janah Aji, MD<\/a>, Head of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory<\/a> \u00a0at Cooper, and his team immediately administered therapeutic hypothermia (a cooling technique) and inserted a stent into the blocked vessel in his heart.<\/p>\n

Dan remained in critical condition following the catheterization. His heart was working again, but he had been without a heartbeat and oxygen to the brain during the cardiac arrest. His family wondered if he would wake up and, if he did, would he be the same husband, father and grandfather?<\/p>\n