Lucas is saving lives

“It never gets tired.”

Hayden Ray and his fellow firefighters are delighted the Demopolis City Council agreed to lease the Lucas machine for the Fire and Rescue Department. Acquired some two months ago, the device already has been used on calls some about five times when the victim was unresponsive and not breathing, with one successful resuscitation.

The Lucas, said Fire Chief Keith Murray, “increases their chances enormously because it keeps the compression on the chest.”

Ray said the Lucas is designed free up the EMT’s hands so that EMTs can handle other functions as the machine works to keep the patient alive.

“It’s a blessing to have,” he said.

Human beings get tired after two or three rounds of CPR, explained Ray. The Lucas provides the same function as CPR, but, “It provides perfect compression every time,” giving two inches of hard compression with every pulse. Its battery can last from 45 minutes to an hour of continuous use before it must be swapped for another.

If the DFD had purchased the unit outright, the cost would have been about $16,000. The Stryker company, maker of the Lucas, offered a five-year lease plan. Reimbursement from patient insurance helps pays for the cost of the lease, Murray said.

Since the device has a built-in backboard it allows EMTs to lift a patient and transport him while giving continuous chest compression. A boon for doctors is that an X-ray can be taken while it is operating, although that capability has yet to be tested at Whitfield Regional Hospital.

Murray said another company let the DFD borrow a similar device, and EMTs used it on a call. “It was such a good experience, we had to work out a way to get one.” When Stryker gave the department the option for a lease, “we went after it,” he said.

The DFD already had looked at the Lucas. The fire department in Livingston has one that Chief Kevin Bronson demonstrated. “He calls us his baby daughter,” joked Murray.

Other than Livingston, the nearest Lucas devices are found in Tuscaloosa, Mobile or Montgomery, he continued. “Having the ability to have it on the truck is amazing.”

Murray, who came to Demopolis from Pinellas County, Fla., said that department has more than 100 ambulances, and they don’t have a Lucas on any of them.

Every member of the department has been checked out on the equipment, since no one has to be an EMT to use it. “We train on it on a regular basis,” Murray said.

“It’s super simple to use,” said Ray. “It’s easy to set up, especially on a rigid person who is not a CPR dummy.”

The Lucas can be used in tandem with another live-saving piece of equipment. The Lifepak 15 is a $40,000 Automatic External Defibrillator, or AED, that came with the purchase of the new Rescue Unit truck. More than a basic defibrillator, the unit also reads heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen level.

“Early defibrillation and CPR save people’s lives,” stressed Murray.

He called Lifepak a workhorse that can provide the same level of monitoring as than in a hospital. Normal EMT units around the state do not have the device.

Eventually Murray hopes to be able to link to WRH to send vitals directly.

Lifepak also can be used as a pacer to shock the heart, but a paramedic must be on hand to operate that function.