NICK EICHER, HOST: A paramedic monitored the patient’s dangerously racing heart rate—from the back of a racing ambulance.
A 59-year-old man lay strapped on the gurney complaining of pain and shallow breathing, as his heart franticly pounded inside his chest.
Still miles away from the nearest hospital, one of emergency responders inside the ambulance did something that might have saved the patient’s life.
But it wasn’t the EMT seated next to him.
It was the driver.
He didn’t notice there was a massive pothole coming up, and the ambulance driver plowed straight into it.
With a violent kick, the tire sank into the cratered asphalt and bounced back out and the force of that was enough to jolt the patient’s racing heart back to normal.
An emergency-room physician told the Omaha, Nebraska World-Herald newspaper that sometimes, that’s exactly what it takes: a sudden physical jolt to return a heart to normal rhythm.
But a pothole potentially saving a man’s life, the doctor said, “That’s a new one for the books.”
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