Gareth was taking part in the London Marathon in April.

Feeling unwell with cramp, he walked towards two ECS First Responders, Stuart and Trinity, before collapsing as they were with him. Immediately moving him onto the floor, Stuart and Trinity confirmed that he was now pulseless, and in cardiac arrest. Starting chest compressions and attaching a defibrillator, the team called for immediate assistance from the nearby ECS team.

Arriving shortly afterwards were a number of team members, including Blair, an experienced Paramedic and Team Leader. Providing scene leadership, Blair coordinated the initial resuscitation, as the team placed an i-gel, an airway device to enable the team to ventilate Gareth, and moved him onto a stretcher to extricate him to the nearest treatment post at Savoy Place. Hearing the cardiac arrest confirmation on the radio, Dr Edward Langford, mobilised on foot with the LUCAS chest compression device, arriving minutes later, just as the team were loading Gareth onto the stretcher. This device was then fitted, ensuring continuous high quality chest compressions during the 300m distance to the treatment post.

Gareth was taken to a specialist treatment post capable of providing advanced care, rarely seen outside of hospital.

On arrival at the treatment post, the team were met in the resuscitation bay by multiple senior Enhanced Care Services clinicians, including Doctors who specialise in Emergency Medicine and Intensive Care, experienced Emergency Nurses, Critical Care Paramedics and First Responders. The resuscitation team intubated Gareth, gained intravenous access, placed core temperature monitoring and initiated aggressive cooling through the use of cold water immersion, all whilst the LUCAS device continued to give Gareth chest compressions. Following initial blood testing utilising an EPOC, a specialist device, the team confirmed Gareth’s potassium was dangerously high, and that, coupled with his extreme core temperature, was most likely causing his heart to not beat.

Over the subsequent 10 minutes, the ECS team utilised a range of medicines to bring Gareth’s potassium down and protect his heart, cooled Gareth to a safe level and delivered critical care support, resulting in Gareth regaining a pulse. Gareth was then placed into an induced coma with a general anaesthetic, and the London’s Air Ambulance ECMO response unit arrived but thankfully were no longer required. The ECS critical care team of Critical Care Doctor David Connor, Critical Care Paramedic Liam Webb and Craig Harman also arrived to provide onward care to St Thomas’ Hospital where Gareth went on to spend weeks in hospital.

On Sunday, a number of the team were able to meet Gareth and his family, and walk with him from the Treatment Post where he was resuscitated, to the finish line on the Mall.

Dr Edward Langford, ECS Managing Director commented – “We were so thrilled to be able to meet Gareth and his family on Sunday. Seeing him cross the line meant so much to our team who provided incredible care that day. From the first responders who were with gareth as he collapsed, to our Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics who delivered extensive resuscitation before transferring him to hospital, and all those behind the scenes that made that possible.

We founded Enhanced Care Services over ten years ago to raise the standard of care available at events, and it is moments like this that make it truly worthwhile.”

About ECS

ECS are a specialist event medicine provider, delivering care to patients irrespective of injury, illness or location, across the country and even abroad. Founded in 2015 by two Emergency Medicine Doctors and backed by robust governance, ECS are the leaders in event enhanced and critical care delivery, and work closely with many large scale event organisers to deliver medical cover from 2 to 200 personnel.

Want to know more about our event medical cover? Contact our event operations team at event.ops@enhancedcareservices.co.uk.