Dead Man Walking

The call came out for a man with heart problems at the cardiologists office. Understatement of the year. The man was walking on the treadmill undergoing a cardiac stress test when he went into V-Tach (ventricular tachycardia) without pulses. In laymen terms, he died. The cardiologist immediately called 911 and then diffibrillated the patient. By the time that we got there the patient was sitting up on the exam table and stated to us that he was feeling fine. He said that he did not need to go to the hospital. At this point he was still hooked up to the cardiac monitor and we could see that he was still having frequent multifocal PVC's (where the heart beats too early) and he was also having short runs of V-Tach. Needless to say e made everyone in the room a little nervous. It took 3 doctors to convince him that he should go to the ER. At this point he informed us that he would walk to the ambulance. Yeah! That didn't happen. He has to be one of the luckiest guys in Torrance!