Tamara Prescott doesn't usually attend medical lectures. She leaves that to her physician husband, Jim Prescott, who's been practicing family medicine in McPherson, Kan., for the past 14 years.

Three months after attending a local medical event, however, Tamara used information she'd learned to help save her husband's life when he suffered cardiac arrest. 

Jim Prescott's survival is also attributed to new life-saving procedures being used by McPherson's Emergency Medical Services. His heart attack initiated a community-wide fundraising effort to equip all emergency response vehicles in McPherson County with automated external defibrillators, or AEDs. 

With the new protocols, EMS crews have dramatically increased their field save rate among those suffering cardiac arrest to 65 percent in the past two years, from just over 10 percent in earlier years under previous guidelines. 

"That's up there with the best in the country," says Dr. Greg Thomas, a University of Kansas School of Medicine graduate who heads Emergency Medical Services for McPherson County. Located between Wichita and Salina, the county's population is about 30,000.  

'A paradigm shift'

As an affiliate faculty member for the KU Medical Education Network Site for South-Central Kansas, Thomas has taught advanced cardiac life support classes to physicians for more than two decades. 

In summer 2011, he heard Dr. Gordon Ewy (pronounced A-vee) of the University of Arizona's Sarver Heart Center speak at an EMS state conference. Ewy talked about his 30-plus years' research into more successful outcomes following cardiac arrest, using chest compressions without mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. 

"It was a paradigm shift, not giving breaths the first 10 minutes," Thomas recalls. 

Ewy, a KU School of Medicine alumnus is an American Heart Association cardiac "giant" - a designation given by the group every five years. Although described by CNN medical correspondent and neurosurgeon Sanjay Gupta as "cantankerous and opinionated" about his research, Ewy's work influenced the American Heart Association's change in CPR guidelines in 2010. 

Ewy's research revealed that the most critical action following cardiac arrest is to restart the heart. The blood generally has enough oxygen to supply the brain and heart for several minutes, so first responders need to use those crucial early minutes to restart the heart. The best way to do that is to give a minimum of 200 deep chest compressions - at least two inches deep into the chest - at a rate of 100 compressions per minute. 

Emergency crews then use an AED to check the heart's rhythm and administer a shock, if needed. 

By the end of 2011, Thomas and his staff changed their EMS protocol. Emergency dispatchers were told to advise callers to immediately start chest compressions on heart attack victims whose collapse wasn't due to respiratory issues. EMS crews were to administer 200 compressions before even checking the heart's rhythm. 

Thomas also brought Ewy to town to talk to the county's medical society during a special event. Tamara Prescott was in the audience. 

"A few months later, Jim Prescott was on the receiving end," Thomas says. "He's one of our 15 field saves." 

Doctors make bad patients

On May 17, 2012, the 20^th anniversary of his graduation from KU School of Medicine-Wichita, Prescott thought his chronic back pain was the worst it had ever been. He canceled his appointments with patients. 

"That should have been clue No. 1 because I never cancel," he says. He had a brief episode of shortness of breath, and some left-side neck pain and clamminess. Tamara suggested taking him to the ER. 

"Doctors are the worst patients," Prescott says. Instead of seeking treatment, he spent the day lifting weights to work out what he thought were kinks in his back, resting, and getting angry about the outcome of "American Idol." 

Prescott woke up in the hospital with Tamara telling him he'd had a heart attack. 

When Prescott collapsed, Tamara recalled Ewy's speech. She instructed their son, Tim, then 17, to administer chest compressions while she called 9-1-1. 

A community effort

Following his heart attack, Prescott started a fundraising effort with the McPherson Healthcare Foundation to ensure all police and sheriff's cars and fire department paramedics are outfitted with AEDs. 

"What started with one man's near-tragedy is helping our community's quality of life," says Chad Clark of the foundation. The foundation raised enough funds for AEDs in all emergency first-response vehicles, and also created an endowed fund to purchase AEDs for community groups. 

That's an outcome any doctor - "bad patient" or not - should be proud of.

Online resources

How to do hands-only CPR

Dr. Ewy's research and chest-only compressions