Mumbai: ‘Cardiologist aims to train more rail staffers to save lives’

Dr Akshay Mehta, an interventional cardiologist affiliated with the Rotary Club of Bombay Airport

A commuter who had suffered a cardiac arrest and fell unconscious at Marine Lines station on August 29 and was saved by a Western Railway (WR) staffer using an automated external defibrillator remained in a coma for several days at HN Reliance hospital and was discharged late last week, hospital authorities said.

His survival, however, may not have been possible without the efforts of Dr Akshay Mehta, an interventional cardiologist affiliated with the Rotary Club of Bombay Airport, who has worked at leading hospitals like Nanavati and Breach Candy. He has trained railway staffers at 24 stations - 10 on the Western line and 14 on the Central line - over the past year.

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"We are very happy he has been discharged," said station superintendent Pradip Biswas, who performed CPR and used the defibrillator on the passenger who had collapsed on the platform. "Railway staffers are trained in CPR and many health camps are held for it. But this was the first time we were trained in using defibrillators," Biswas added.

Dr Mehta said that defibrillators are rarely found in public spaces like railway stations in India, unlike in other countries. "In September last year, I decided to change that, with help from donors through the Rotary Club," he said. CPR alone, he said, has only a five to ten per cent success rate. "With defibrillators, the chances rise to 60 to 70 per cent. The sooner it is done, the better the chances of saving a life."

Using portable defibrillators, resuscitation efforts can be sustained for up to an hour. The process involves alternating between two minutes of CPR with a brief few second shocks from the defibrillator. "There are cases where a person is revived after 45 minutes. In this case, the passenger was revived in about 10 minutes," Dr. Mehta said. Dr Mehta plans to extend his training to another 20 stations or possibly more over the next year. He said that he plans to cover the entire city and its suburbs.

"This was the first time a layperson from the Railways has been able to save someone using a defibrillator. Previously, as far as I know, the standard response was to rush the person to a hospital, but by then, it was often too late, and the individual was declared dead. Everyone should receive basic CPR training and people should not be afraid to use it," he added.