Mechanical CPR Devices Improve Cardiac Care for Maine EMS

CARIBOU, Maine (WAGM) – Mechanical CPR is a newer tool that Maine EMS is using to provide more effective care for cardiac arrest patients. NewsSource 8 reporter Janelle Lopez explains.

“Lucas is a mechanical CPR device. They’re starting to become more common in emergency medical services. They provide high-quality CPR, the same as a human. They follow strict guidelines on how to perform CPR.”

“Maine EMS, the governing body, recommends that we do at least 10 minutes of manual CPR with responding EMS medics before we deploy the Lucas device. When I turn it on, you’ll see it’s really fast. But when I put it on the patient, I press go, there’s a little moment where it senses where it is on the chest. They’re doing CPR to a depth of 2 inches, they’re doing 100 to 120 compressions per minute, which is the rate we want.”

“That way, our ambulance has two paramedics, and Lucas allows one of us to manage the airway while he does CPR and the other one gives the meds. Instead of changing people, you know, every two minutes, they want us to change people to make sure they’re able to do CPR properly. We don’t have to change people. You put it on and it works.”

Paramedic Batchelder says early and effective CPR saves lives.

“There are alarms that tell us when the two minutes are up, so we can check the pulse and rhythm on the EKG monitor, and whatever the rhythm or the pulse, we’ll take appropriate action. So it alarms every two minutes, and once the heart stops, it sends a report and we can see how long our pauses were, or how many compressions we did, how long we did them. That’s really useful for showing how long our pauses are. The important thing with CPR is to keep the pauses under 10 seconds. During CPR, the pressure builds up in the patient’s cardiovascular system, and every time you pause, you lose that pressure that helps perfuse the brain and other organs. So keeping the pauses as short as possible is really critical to the patient’s survival.

Once care has been provided, Lucas devices can generate reports for healthcare providers that can be shared with hospitals or others for review.