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Park City Paramedics Recognized For Saving Life Of Stroke Victim

Two Park City paramedics were recently recognized for their role in the life saving efforts of a man who had a stroke while in Park City. 

Ogden resident Alan Hampton and his wife were finishing lunch in Park City in October when Hampton said he started to feel strange, when he tried to communicate with his wife he realized he couldn’t talk. After a call out to EMS Park City firefighters Dirk Grow and Logan Rodriguez arrived on scene. Rodriguez said they recognized immediately that Hampton was having a stroke.

“We have ways to tell pretty quickly whether a patient is having a stroke and what kind of stroke," Rodriguez explained. "Patients will present in a certain way it’s our job to find that out really quickly because time is life for these patients. The quicker that we can get them to a facility that can treat them, and that’s really important too is getting them to the right facility. We recognized it really quick as we got onto scene, we made the decision not to mess around on scene. Get them down to U of U as quickly as possible. That was kind of the most significant part about this call was the time frame. So the time that we got the call sitting at the station by the time the patient was in for a CAT scan at the U of U was 42 minutes. That’s pretty impressive and a lot of things have to go right in order for that to happen.”

Hampton was rushed to the University of Utah emergency room where Vascular Neurologist Jana Wold prescribed tPA medication to break up the clots. Dr. Ramesh Grandhi a neuro surgeon then went to work threading a stint in Hamptons from a vein in his leg all the way to his brain where the clot was able to be removed. Hampton immediately was able to speak normally again and has made steady progress on his recovery. Grow and Rodriguez were honored at a recent event also in attendance was Mr. Hampton.

“Which was really cool for us because we don’t really get to see the patients after we drop them off at the hospital," Rodriguez contined. "Some of the bigger calls we’ll get some follow up on, but we don’t ever run into them again. So it was cool to see him and normal and to see what he was saying about the call what he remembered.”

Grow said they spend a lot of time training for events such as these.

“With the fire district we have a training division," Grow said. "We have two people in charge of it and then we do continuing training every shift. Whether it’s medical or fire. Then we just update new protocols or new equipment coming out or new studies. Then we go from there work them into our own protocols.”

Park City Fire District Chief Paul Hewitt says the call went about as well as it could.

“Remarkable and these paramedics deserve all the credit in the world," Hewitt explained. "As well as all our paramedics visitors and residents of Park City should know we have a very very capable EMS personnel. They’re very well trained and the Park City Fire District stay abreast of all of the latest technologies. We’re fortunate enough to have the resources to implement those technologies. The part that no technology is going to do is the personnel. Dirk and Logan did a fantastic job. They made some really pertinent, quick decisions and this call went extremely well.”

Fire Chief Hewitt also noted that about 80% of what fire district does is medically related.

KPCW reporter David Boyle covers all things in the Heber Valley as well as sports and breaking news.
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