Community Corner

Howard County Fire Captain Streamlines CPR, Saves Lives

Captain Dale Becker was recently recognized as a top 10 innovator in the field of EMS for his new, streamlined approach to rescue operations.

Captain Dale Becker remembers the first time he went on a call that required cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

“I was just kind of freaked out by it,” he said with a laugh. Becker was 17, volunteering in Sykesville and he said, “I wasn’t interested in touching the guy.”

How things have changed. 

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Becker, a captain and emergency medical services (EMS) supervisor with the Howard County Department of Fire and Rescue Services, was recently recognized by the Journal of Emergency Medical Services (JEMS) as one of the "EMS 10," one of the top 10 innovators in EMS who drove the profession forward in 2012, for his new, streamlined approach to CPR practices.

He is just one of 10 professionals recognized out of a pool of 100.

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“That just blows me away.” 

Put simply, the revised CPR protocol focuses on quality over speed.

Before he attended the Resuscitation Academy in Seattle a few years ago, Becker had a very different outlook on how to handle CPR. The 16-year veteran was fast and focused – on getting a patient to transport.

But responding to someone who had suffered sudden cardiac arrest was rarely, if ever, smooth.

“Its very difficult to do,” he said. “You’ve got the family, dogs barking, and they you’re trying to balance yourself as you’re carrying someone down the steps, through the yard … it just doesn’t work.”

Becker said that by moving so quickly, “We were sacrificing the ability to do really good CPR.”  And really good CPR is what saves lives.

“If we don’t resuscitate the patients before we get to the hospital, the mortality rate is 100 percent.”

CPR is performed on victims of sudden cardiac arrest. Its aim is to circulate oxygenated blood throughout a person’s body when the heart cannot. In Howard County, firefighters and paramedics respond to about 150 cases of cardiac arrest per year, according to spokeswoman Jacqueline Cutler. 

After spending a week at the academy, which lists as its mission “To improve sur­vival from car­diac arrest,” Becker thought it was time for an updated approach to performing CPR in Howard County. 

He started with his station, Fire Station 8. He got the OK from the Medical Director and enlisted his coworkers. Before the revised protocol, Becker said, when he arrived on a scene, the paramedic would take the lead, assigning people jobs and managing the frenzied task that is a resuscitation attempt. 

Using the revised protocol, however, every firefighter has a preassigned duty and knows exactly where to go when responding to a cardiac arrest. 

“The men and women, today, they know when they come to work this morning ‘this person has chest compressions; this person has monitor; this person does time management.’” Becker said. “When we get to the scene, there’s no figuring it out.”

The results speak for themselves.

According to Howard County Medical Director Dr. Kevin Seaman, 38 percent of cardiac arrest patients are released from the hospital in "good neurological condition." That number is up from 19 percent since introducing this new approach to CPR.

Over his career, Becker said there was a time when he could recollect just a few patients who he had performed CPR on who survived and walked out of the hospital. Now he said, nurses are asking responders what’s going on. “’We’ve never seen this many post-cardiac patients,’ they say.”

“In the past two or three years I’ve lost count of the number of patients we’ve resuscitated and the number who have walked out of the hospital.”  

“It’s a pleasure to represent the Howard County Department of Fire and Rescue Services,” Becker said. “I didn’t do this on my own … it’s the men and women of the department who have decided we’re just going to do this. And we’ve done it and they’ve been successful. 

“That’s just how we roll in Howard County.”


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