New protocol for area EMS service helps rural patients get life-saving heart attack treatment faster

BUTLER COUNTY, Pa. — Every 40 seconds, someone in the United States has a heart attack. Typically, an ambulance responds when someone is having that emergency — but there is only a small window of 90 minutes or less for first responders to get a patient to a hospital, and a surgeon has their hands on the heart.

“It was coming up, and I was like ‘This isn’t indigestion that I’m familiar with’ and it came right up into my throat and neck and jaw. That’s about the time I said ‘I think I’m having a heart attack,’” said Jerry Pflug, who survived a heart attack.

Pflug was having one of the worst types of heart attacks, a STEMI. It happened on April 1, and his wife called an ambulance from their Adams Township home for help.  Quality EMS responded.

“I don’t know if I would have died or not, but I was in such excruciating pain, I don’t know what would have happened,” Pflug said.

In this situation, minutes matter as there is a risk of permanent heart damage or death.

“In that time, we took two pictures of your heart. We gave you aspirin, registered you at the hospital, did two IVs, drew some blood, gave you saline, some fentanyl, placed you in a hospital gown, gave you another dose of fentanyl,” said Keith Singleton, the Deputy Chief at Quality EMS.

All that happened in the back of an ambulance. It’s a new protocol that Quality EMS put into place for STEMI heart attack patients — as the biggest challenge they face is the sheer miles of roads in our region.

“Our biggest problem is we want to get you to a hospital as quickly as possible to solve the problem in your heart. But depending on where you are in our towns, it could be a 25, 35, 45 minute transport time from your house to the hospital,” Singleton said.

So, working in partnership with UPMC Passavant, this company is doing what it takes to get those patients in the door faster.

“What surprised me was there was no time lost registering. They had my medical records. I was signed in. I went from the ambulance straight to the elevator to the operating floor,” Pflug said.

It’s a change impacting those living in southern Butler County.

“Do you think you have saved lives doing this?” Channel 11 reporter Nicole Ford asked.

“I absolutely know for a fact that we have, yes,” Singleton said.

Singleton hopes other EMS companies in the region see the power and adopt the change, too.

It’s a change that has also earned Quality EMS the American Heart Association Mission: Lifeline EMS Gold achievement award. It’s something Singleton said wouldn’t be possible without the support and funding from their five municipalities: Adams Township, Callery Borough, Forward Township, Mars Borough, Middlesex Township, and Valencia Borough.

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