Sterling Sinema is alive today because of quick actions taken by his wife and a diverse group of medical personnel—and a pioneering program to get rapid aid to victims of cardiac arrest. Headed for urgent care in Escondido, Calif., to manage a severe bout of heartburn, Sinema suddenly collapsed sitting in the passenger seat of his wife Renee's vehicle.
"She's told me I started decompensating or convulsing, whatever it's called," Sinema said. "I went into cardiac arrest, and she turned the car around." On the way out of town they had passed Ramona's Fire Station 80 and noticed that the full complement of firefighters and paramedics happened to be on hand.
Getting back to that spot, with its ambulance and trained paramedics, was suddenly the only priority. "She turns the car around and flies back to Station 80; I mean, running red lights, she'll say she was Mario Kart Princess Peach Derby," Sinema said, a look of pride in his eyes. "She pulls in, yells at the paramedics, blares the horn, jumps out, comes around to undo my seatbelt, checks for a pulse, nothing.
" Paramedics loaded him on a gurney and headed toward the nearest hospital, Palomar Medical Center Poway. But Palomar's Dr. Christian McClung, overseeing ambulance transport by radio that morning and reviewing the details of this patient's case, called and made a counterintuitive demand.
"I told them not to go to Poway but to take him to Sharp Memorial in San Diego," McClung said. "We could see that he met the criteria f.