London Marathon spectator is first to survive cardiac arrest under new ECMO protocol

A Somerset woman whose heart stopped as she travelled back from the London Marathon two years ago is the first person to survive under a new protocol that lets paramedics go directly to a specialist team at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. Mel Baker, 52, has now met the paramedics and police officers who saved her life.

She and her daughter Nichea, 26, had spent the day in the capital cheering on a friend in the race. On the journey back Ms Baker suddenly collapsed, with only her daughter beside her. Other people were nearby when they called 999, and paramedics and police officers arrived very quickly and started CPR.

What ECMO is and how the new protocol works

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, does the work of the heart and lungs. It keeps oxygenated blood flowing to the vital organs while doctors deal with the underlying cause of a cardiac arrest. The crew at the scene called the closest ECMO centre, St Bartholomew’s in the City, to warn staff she was coming in.

Under the new protocol, paramedics can take a patient straight to the hospital’s specialist team and equipment instead of going through an emergency department first. The emergency services restarted Ms Baker’s heart, and without the new route she would probably have died.

Keir Rutherford, an advanced paramedic in critical care, said police officers had already used a defibrillator on her once by the time his crew got there, but she was still in cardiac arrest. He said she was alive because of the speed of everyone who responded, including the clinicians at St Bartholomew’s.

Meeting the crews at Waterloo

Ms Baker and her daughter recently went to the London Ambulance Service headquarters in Waterloo to thank the paramedics and police officers in person. She said she had not been able to put what she wanted to say into writing, so the meeting felt right. “They saved my life,” she said.

Nichea said she panicked because she was alone and did not understand what was happening. “It happened really quickly,” she said, adding that her mother would not be alive without the paramedics and officers.