AN OFF-DUTY junior doctor who had just finished a long hospital shift jumped into action to help a lady who collapsed at a retail park.
Zainab Hussain, who had qualified as a doctor last year, had just parked up at Solihull Retail park on her way home after work when she saw two ambulances and two police cars parked up.
The University Hospital of Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) academic doctor, headed over where she was invited onto the ambulance and where she discovered the patient heart had stopped.
She said: “The senior paramedic began driving the ambulance towards Heartlands.
“This was the first time I had stepped into an ambulance or performed CPR on a patient in a moving vehicle.
” It was hard to assess the rhythm from the ECG due to the interference from the vehicle moving at high speed.
“Therefore, we were relying on clinical assessment more than the trace. I did not anticipate how difficult it was to perform CPR in a high speed moving vehicle whilst you are trying to ensure sufficient depth of your compressions and without falling yourself.
“We felt a pulse and realised that the patient had ROSC (return of spontaneous circulation) which was great news.”
On arrival at Heartlands Zainab, which completing a masters in handed over to the medical team on duty at the A&E department.
She said: “It felt as though all of the hard work from medical school and developing as a doctor during my foundation years was coming into real practice.
“I was gutted I did not meet the family.”
Do you know the lady who collapsed on May 15 at around 6pm or her family – if so contact the newsdesk on [email protected].
