ST. LOUIS COUNTY—St. Luke’s Hospital and the Monarch Fire Protection District (MFPD) began a collaboration to improve survival rates for cardiac arrest victims.

What You Need To Know

  • Saint Lukes Hospital and the Monarch Fire Protection District began a collaboration to improve survival rates for cardiac arrest victims
  • For patients unresponsive to C-P-R, a newer initiative is underway called extracorporeal-CPR or ECPR uses a device to drain and reoxygenate blood before returning it

  • The district was trained for rapid recognition of when ECPR is needed and they’ll alert the hospital before the patient’s arrival

  • After doubling cardiac arrest survival rates last year, the district believes this collaboration will only grow that success

St. Luke’s surgeons have a new lifesaving technique for patients who cannot be revived with traditional CPR after cardiac arrest called Extracorporeal Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (ECPR). This advanced resuscitation technique uses extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) which provides temporary support to a patient’s heart and lungs via a device that pumps and re-oxygenates blood.

Monarch first responders will promptly alert St. Luke’s team while transporting a patient in cardiac arrest. This gives cardiothoracic surgeons time to set up ECMO equipment for ECPR.

“We believe that by collaborating and leveraging our combined expertise, we can significantly improve survival rates for cardiac arrest patients,” said Nick Smith, Deputy Chief of EMS at MFPD. “In 2024, the Monarch Fire Protection District proudly reported doubling the national average for cardiac arrest survival rates, and we are confident that this new program will help us save even more lives.”

St. Luke’s and MFPD prepared and trained for six months for this initiative to happen. A St. Luke’s representative said that showed the two organizations’ commitment to collaboratively saving lives.

“This is an exciting collaboration that allows providers in the hospital to work directly with providers in the field to improve survival after cardiac arrest,” said Dr. Jeremy Leidenfrost MD, St. Luke’s Cardiothoracic Surgeon.

Last March, the University of Florida College of Medicine celebrated their ECPR program saving its first heart attack patient. University of Iowa also celebrated an ECPR program success last Fall.

The US Cardiology Review published an article that weighed the ECPR’s life-saving potential versus the resources and cost to do it. This author stated for ECPR to be successful, a patient needs to receive CPR by a bystander. Bystanders only administer CPR 40.2% of the time according to the article. Due to that, they advocated for more resources being channeled into improving basic CPR skills and making automated external defibrillators more accessible.

More studies on ECPR can be found in the National Library of Medicine by both U.S. publications and abroad.