A few months ago, advanced care paramedic Sami Sharif responded to a distress call not far from his station at Avenue Road and Davenport Road. Upon arriving at the scene, he found a man lying in his backyard with no pulse, and he quickly began attempts to resuscitate him.
Five or six minutes later, he was able to elicit a pulse and raise the man’s blood pressure. Sharif then opened an envelope from his bag, read what was in it and proceeded to cover the man’s body in gel packs, administer chilled saline into his IV and get him to the hospital.
The patient made a full recovery, with no neurological complications — which could all be thanks to what was in that one envelope.
The 27-year-old has been with City of Toronto Emergency Medical Services (EMS) for six years and is one of a number of Toronto paramedics qualified to administer a special experimental treatment.
Stowed away in Sharif’s bag are several unopened envelopes with instructions that read “cool” or “do not cool” for each cardiac arrest patient he encounters. The selection is completely random. It is all part of the trial-based ICE-PACS study being conducted in Toronto by Rescu, an Ontario-based research program.
The study aims to prevent brain damage in cardiac arrest patients by lowering body temperatures as soon as medically possible. At the end of the study, researchers will compare patient outcomes, and if positive, the treatment will become protocol for all cardiac arrest patients in Toronto.
“If we can do anything to help benefit the outcome of the patient, we should do it,” Sharif said.