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Case Reports
. 2024 Jun 7:19:100685.
doi: 10.1016/j.resplu.2024.100685. eCollection 2024 Sep.

Successful prehospital ECMO in drowning resuscitation after prolonged submersion

Jeroen Seesink  1 , Wietske van der Wielen  2 , Dinis Dos Reis Miranda  3   4 , Xavier J R Moors  1   3
Affiliations
Case Reports

Successful prehospital ECMO in drowning resuscitation after prolonged submersion

Jeroen Seesink et al. Resusc Plus. .

Abstract

An 18-year-old drowning victim was successfully resuscitated using prehospital veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA-ECMO). Despite 24 min of submersion in water with a surface temperature of 15 °C, the patient was cannulated on-scene and transported to a trauma center. After ICU admission on VA-ECMO, he was decannulated and extubated by day 5. He was transferred to a peripheral hospital on day 6 and discharged home after 3.5 weeks with favorable neurological outcome of a Cerebral Performance Categories (CPC) score of 1 out of 5. This case underscores the potential of prehospital ECMO in drowning cases within a well-equipped emergency response system.

Keywords: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR); Drowning; Drowning Resuscitation; Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO); Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS); Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA); Prehospital veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA-ECMO).

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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