N. Raghuraman's column: Difficult to predict medical emergencies, but easy to be prepared

At around 9 pm on Monday night, Jalandhar's industrialist Deepak Pujara was in the middle of his badminton game. For the past five years, he spent a few hours playing and entertaining at the Raizada Hansraj Badminton Stadium to stay fit like many in that city. While playing a shot, he suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed. Dr. Nitish Garg, a cardiologist from the same city who was playing on the other court, saw him falling and rushed to help. He gave a cardiac massage, but Deepak did not respond. Although the hospital was just a two-minute driving distance from the stadium, Dr. Garg felt that Deepak would not be able to go that far. He continued CPR after administering an emergency pill from the stadium's first-aid kit. At the same time, they were also engaged in arranging medical equipment and ambulances with the help of staff, so that they could reach the hospital soon. When the staff brought the life-saving device 'Defibrillator', which gave an electric shock to the heart, they gave a shock and the heart started beating. Deepak was then taken to the hospital, where investigations found two large blockages of 90% and 99%, in which stents were inserted. I have heard that Deepak is now responding to treatment and is getting healthy. This reminded me of an incident on the second day of Diwali in 2018. Some doctors were playing badminton at the Mahanandanagar Sports Arena in Nanakhera, Ujjain, to relax. During the photoshoot after the game, one of the doctors collapsed in a matter of seconds. The photographer noticed that in the first photo the doctor was smiling, in the second the position of his mouth changed, in the third he leaned forward and in the fourth photo he fell to the ground. Dr. Nilesh Mehta, a well-known cardiologist from Australia, who was present there, took charge of the situation and Dr. Nilesh Sharma, the then head of CHL Hospital in Ujjain, was also called for help. Since many of the people who were playing there were doctors and those who had heart attacks were also doctors, immediate action saved their lives. Then in 2023, when I went to Jain Irrigation in Jalgaon, I saw that their medical department was distributing a small plastic container to all the employees and they were being urged to carry it wherever they went. He took this decision after one of his senior officers died of a heart attack during a routine brisk walk. Every second counts in cardiac arrest. Knowing the procedure for giving cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) allows you to maintain blood flow to the victim's vital organs until help arrives. It is also better to check if you have an automated external defibrillator (AED) at your sports club, gym or workplace. If you know its location in advance, many precious minutes can be saved. Even if you don't have any heart disease, consult your doctor about carrying emergency medicines with you at all times. Obviously, you can help them extra by giving those medicines to a doctor on the spot. The big lesson from all these incidents is that a sudden cardiac problem can happen to anyone, anywhere. In such a situation, the survival of life depends entirely on immediate action. You can't anticipate a medical emergency, but you can be prepared for it. The trap is that a good doctor friend is always better, because he gives an unbiased opinion on any health problem. But if the same doctor is also your sports partner, then it is like having a laddu in both hands.