Elderly man dies after 30 minutes of CPR
'His son arrived at the scene and sat next to the patient, talking to him while I was doing CPR'
An elderly man collapsed after apparently suffering a heart attack in Randgate last week.
The incident took place on Friday, 1 July at approximately 9:40am between the entrance of the Randgate Spar and the Absa ATM.
A security guard saw the man collapse and ran to Randgate Pharmacy seeking assistance. Rianie Grové, a nurse at the pharmacy, took it upon herself to respond to the emergency.
She arrived at the scene and realised that the man wasn’t breathing and needed CPR. “I was struggling to give oxygen to the man and had to use a CPR one-way valve to breathe air into his lungs,” Grové said.
Bystanders called ambulances and the family of the unconscious man. “His son arrived on the scene. He sat next to his father, talking to him while I was doing CPR,” Grové said. Grové spent half an hour performing CPR.
While Grové was tending to her patient, another elderly man, (aged 67), was crossing Union Street when the side mirror of a passing bakkie grazed his upper body. As a result, his upper body twisted and he collapsed onto the sidewalk. It was later discovered that the head of his thigh-bone (the femur) had fractured.
Given the condition of the initial patient, Grové was unable to attend to the second victim. “I had to help the most critical patient first,” Grové said.
The critically ill heart attack victim was later loaded into an ambulance and rushed to hospital, but sadly he died en route.
The less critical patient was rushed to Leratong Hospital, where he is now recovering.
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Also read:
Do you know the man who collapsed on the sidewalk?
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