12/10/2024
SEABROOK — Sunday, Nov. 3, will always be a very special day for Ken Cash and his family. Not only is it the day his daughter Brenda was married, it’s also the day he didn’t die.
The morning began normally for the 57-year-old father-of-the-bride when he rose at 7, or at least as normal as possible for any dad preparing for his daughter’s big day.
“Sunday morning I was getting ready to go to my daughter’s wedding when I started having chest pains,” Cash said. “That was around 8. I sat down and rested, but the pain kept getting worse.”
When Cash’s wife, Ronda, asked if he wanted to go to the emergency room, his answer was “Yes.”
His wife drove him to Portsmouth Regional Hospital's Seabrook ER around 9 a.m., he said, as the pain grew more severe. Ushered into the examination room, Cash said, the emergency physician brought over a machine and performed a test.
“After that, I remember him saying, ‘He’s having a heart attack. Call Seabrook Fire Department,” Cash said. “I don’t remember much after that.”
His lapse of memory is a blessing, according to Seabrook Fire Department Capt. Kevin Janvrin and other medical professionals who worked feverishly that day to keep Ken Cash alive.
The call went into Seabrook Fire dispatch at 9:05 a.m., but Cash wasn’t transported to Portsmouth Regional Hospital until 9:59. For that entire time, ER and Seabrook Fire Department staff fought for Cash’s life. Seabrook Fire sent an ambulance and paramedics Rich Curtis, Nate Mawson and Bryan Wittman, Janvrin said. Arriving quickly, they and Seabrook ER nurses Alexa Palasciano, Rebecca Harget, Haley McHatten, led by Dr. Douglas Mailly, worked to stabilize Cash for transport.
But once they got him in the ambulance, the situation grew dire.
“He went into cardiac arrest,” Janvrin said. “So they took him back into the ER.”
Needing more helping hands, Janvrin and paramedic Mark Potvin also responded to Seabrook ER, and for about half an hour everyone labored to get Cash’s heart beating again.
Manual CPR was performed by the paramedics, the ER staff administered cardiac treatment and medication while imparting information to Portsmouth Regional Hospital’s cardiac team. Seabrook paramedics placed the Lucas machine on Cash’s chest, which performed continual automated chest compressions.
But Cash’s heart still wasn’t beating on its own.
Then, Janvrin said, a call came from Portsmouth Regional Hospital's cardiac catheterization unit saying they had readied the cath lab to handle Cash immediately. The paramedics should rush Cash straight to the cath lab for the emergency procedure.
While administering CPR with the Lucus machine, Janvrin said, paramedics put Cash in the ambulance and raced to Portsmouth Regional Hospital. They continued cardiac care treatment, he said, though they remained worried. Cash’s condition wasn’t improving.
“But around the time we got passed the toll booth, we had a (heart) rhythm back,” Janvrin said. “By the time we arrived at the hospital, his heart was beating on its own and his pupils were equal and reactive. That’s important for someone who’d been in cardiac arrest that long. It meant there’s probably no brain damage.”
Portsmouth Regional Hospital cardiologist Dr. Christopher Lawson, whose team was waiting in the cath lab, agrees. Not only is time a factor in the successful prognosis in major myocardial infarction (heart attack) patients, he said, but so is the patient having a blood pressure, which requires a heartbeat.
In the model for treating an emergency like Cash’s, Lawson said, their goal is taking the patient from the ER to an open blood vessel in 90 minutes.
“And we’re able to do that about 90 to 99% of the time,” Lawson said, as they did in Cash’s case.
From what Cash was told, his heart attack was the result of the major artery in his heart being almost completely closed.
“They put in a stent,” he said, a tiny wire mesh tube that re-opens the artery allowing blood to flow to the heart again.
Unfortunately, Cash doesn’t remember his daughter’s wedding, which did take place that Sunday in Franklin. He didn’t remember anything until he woke up in his room at Portsmouth Regional Hospital the following evening.
“The nurse asked me if I knew what day it was,” Cash said. “I asked her, ‘Who won the Patriots’ game?’ She told me the Patriots played yesterday, and it was Monday night.”
Teamwork: The practice that kept a heart beating
A little more than a month after he was stricken, on Monday, Dec. 9, Ken Cash got to meet the men and women from Seabrook Fire Department, Seabrook ER and the cath lab who worked so hard for him Nov. 3. Gathering at the Seabrook Fire Station on Monday afternoon, Cash had a message to deliver, from the bottom of his heart.
“People need to know how important first responders are,” Cash said. “They saved my life. I can’t thank them enough.”
Getting that message and this story out is important, according to Andrew Mason, Portsmouth Regional Hospital’s director of emergency medical outreach, who acts as a liaison to the region’s local first responders.
Too often, Mason said, outcomes of serious medical situations like Cash’s don’t have positive outcomes. When they do, the people involved should know how vital their roles are to saving lives.
“It’s really important to celebrate the wins,” Mason said.
According to Janvrin, Seabrook’s paramedics and the staff of healthcare professionals with Seabrook ER and Portsmouth Regional Hospital, Cash’s win was fostered by everyone working together as a team on behalf of a patient.
“The proof is in the pudding,” Lawson said. “They all did a great job resuscitating (Mr. Cash). Ninety percent of the work was done by the time we got him. It’s very engaging to go to work with people with a high level of skills and who care.”
Janvrin returns the compliment. After getting back to Seabrook Fire Station on Nov. 3, someone from the cath lab called to give the paramedics a positive update on Cash’s condition, Janvrin said. It meant a lot, he said, showing respect for the concern and efforts made by all the team members.
As for Cash, he’s the first to say sharing Thanksgiving with his family this year was very special. He admits he has a long way to go in his cardiac recovery program, but he’s glad he has a chance to do it.
Cash, along with Lawson, has some advice for those — even men or women as relatively young as him — who experience persisting chest pain.
“People need to pay attention,” Cash said. “If they’re having any kind of chest pain, get to an ER or call for help.”
Janvrin said the men and women at Seabrook Fire Department want people to know “we’re here when you need us.”
