NICHOLASVILLE, Ky. — Jessamine County EMS has taken several steps to improve its response to cardiac arrest calls. They are a Lighthouse Community and have seen an improvement in survival rates since taking these measures.
Assistant Chief Floyd Miracle has been with the Jessamine County EMS crew for five years. Around the time he was hired, Chief Jamie Goodpaster saw that there was room for improvement when it came to the crew’s response to cardiac arrest calls. Miracle was hired to improve in this area.
In 2019, he made it his mission to implement steps laid out by the Resuscitation Academy. One step is training paramedics to do High Performance CPR. After a cardiac arrest call, crew members and dispatch callers undergo a performance review as well.
“I can’t stress upon everyone… enough how important that telecommunicator is, the person on the other line,” said Miracle. “They can make all the difference in the world.”
Since implementing these steps, the Resuscitation Academy named the Jessamine County EMS team a Lighthouse Community in 2021. The organization says that lighthouses are “all-star” communities in resuscitation.
From 2019 to 2022, Jessamine County EMS doubled its out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival rate.
Recently, Kellie Niswender, a Jessamine County EMS paramedic, and her partner responded to someone who was having difficulty breathing, but it soon turned into a cardiac arrest. Because of the team’s quick response, survived even though he had been down for about 90 minutes.
“It’s cool when you get a pulse back and just seeing how much hope the family has for the patient and being able to tell them, like, ‘Hey we have a pulse back. We’re doing everything that we can,’ and just giving them even a little bit of hope,” said Niswender.
Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival rates are less than 5% in some communities, according to the Resuscitation Academy. Rural areas are particularly impacted. Miracle wants to spread the message that these numbers can be improved when the proper measures are taken.
“I think we’ve demonstrated that cardiac arrest is a survivable event,” said Miracle.
The Jessamine County EMS is one of 10 Lighthouse Communities in the U.S. and the only one in Kentucky.
Chief Miracle goes to other communities to teach responders how to do High Performance CPR and says that anyone interested in learning can reach out to him.
On Dec. 6, the Resuscitation Academy announced its 2023 RA Alumni Outstanding Achievement Award was being presented to Chief Miracle. In a news release announcing all its reward recipients, the Academy said, "Many people are alive today because of the work of these individuals. We are grateful for their friendship, hard work, and commitment to creating a world where no one dies from cardiac arrest."