Tim Mauer

On Monday August 8 while Tim was at work he suffered a full cardiac arrest.  His co workers were present and started CPR immediately.  He then was transported to the University of Minnesota.  During transport to the U, he had to be shocked a total of 5 times.   The U of M has a special program for victims of cardiac arrest when CPR is started immediately.  My dad met that criteria and therefore was a candidate for this program.  In the program patients are sent directly to the cardiac cath lab for emergency angioplasty, they are placed on a heart and lung machine and the body temp is cooled to 93 degrees.  This allows the heart and lungs to "rest". 

In the cardiac cath lab, they found 3 narrowings in his coronary arteries and opened up the vessels  with stents.   They then inserted a balloon pump to increase blood flow to the coronary arteries, put him on the heart/lung machine, a respirator and heavy sedation.  While still in the cath lab his abdomen became hard, they put a tube into his stomach and found active bleeding (bright red blood).  This will make management a bit more tricky due to the fact that he has to be on blood thinners for his heart but this could cause more bleeding in the stomach.   A GI doctor was then called in and a endoscopy was performed and found bleeding in his stomach and intestines.  This was most likely a result of the trauma from prolonged CPR, during CPR ribs were broken and both lungs were punctured which required chest tubes.  


He was then moved to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit.