An Australian man was saved after incurring a heart attack

May 14, 2013 12:42 GMT  ·  By

A man from Melbourne, Australia, has been brought back from the dead with a revolutionary new resuscitation technique.

The machinery needed to perform the resuscitation operation is available only in Australia, at the Alfred hospital in Victoria.

39-year-old Colin Fiedler is one of the lucky three patients who recovered after being in cardiac arrest for more than half an hour, using the CPR machine.

According to news.com.au, he survived a heart attack that left him clinically dead for 40 minutes in June of last year.

While he was being taken away in an ambulance, paramedics gave him a choice of two hospitals and he chose to be treated at the Alfred.

In retrospect, it was that decision that saved his life. The Alfred is the only facility equipped with the revolutionary machinery.

"I'm so grateful, more than I could ever say," he recalls.

"For some reason, I said The Alfred, which is pretty lucky, because they are the only one that has it," he describes.

Three people who had entered cardiac arrest and had been dead for 40 to 60 minutes were saved at the hospital, with an AutoPulse machine and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.

The device keeps blood and oxygen flowing to the heart and brain while mechanically applying life-saving chest compressions. No disabilities have been reported by any of the three patients who have survived thanks to using it.

Senior intensive care physician Professor Stephen Bernard notes that the Alfred is the only hospital in Melbourne that can currently provide the service.

They have debuted the machine some two years ago, and they are still testing it. However, the results of the tests are encouraging.

His team plans to make the CPR technique available to other medical facilities across the city one day.