Teaming Up to Save a Life
When Jay Chiusano’s co-worker called 911 because she thought he was having
a heart attack, she set in motion the lifesaving STEMI program at UPMC East.
Jay Chiusano, 60, a master electrician, was at work when he
started feeling pain in his left shoulder along with jaw pain. He tried
waiting it out, but gave in to a co-worker who insisted on calling 911.
Since Jay’s EKG results arrived at UPMC East before he did, the
hospital’s Emergency Department (ED) and the cardiac catheterization
(cath) lab team were already prepared to begin treatment.
“I thought it was just a muscle spasm and a toothache,” says Jay,
a Penn Hills resident. “Without her insistence, I might have waited
too long.”
His “door-to-balloon time” — the time between his arrival at the
hospital and when a stent was implanted in his blocked artery to
restore blood flow to his heart — was just 56 minutes.
Within minutes, a local emergency medical services (EMS) team
appeared and performed an electrocardiogram that confirmed
he was having the most deadly type of heart attack: a STEMI
(ST-elevation myocardial infarction). They quickly rushed him by
ambulance to UPMC East — just five miles from his job.
Minutes matter
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