Has anyone considered what the effect on his brain was when his heart stopped in the ICU?
None.
If his heart stopped while in the ICU, their immediate response would have been to immediately start CPR, and intubate Derek.
The brain can go for up to as long as 6 minutes without oxygen. Pass that point, it starts to die if not properly oxygenated.
As soon as he experienced cardiac arrest, the ICU medical staff very much likely intubated Derek, which allowed for both optimum oxygenation of the blood and proper circulation of the newly oxygen-rich blood via cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), which then results in oxygenation of the brain.
While they perform CPR (compressions without breaths - since the mechanical ventilator at that point does its job of oxygenating the blood), they then made sure to have leads on Derek in order to ascertain whether or or not he had a shockable rhythm by way of a defibrillator. If Derek has V-Tach or V-Fib, they would shock him and proceed to perform CPR, while administering epinephrine, vasopressin and/or amiodarone until he obtains Sinus Rhythm. If he obtains Sinus Rhythm, then they stop the CPR and just allow him to remain intubated until he can slowly be weaned off (once he shows signs of being able to breathe on his own).
If they don't obtain a shockable rhythm once cardiac monitors are in place, they just continue CPR and continue monitoring up until they've reached a point past 30 minutes where there is no sign of spontaneous circulation even after extensive Advanced Cardiac Life Support has been given.
The moral of this useless rant is that
Derek should have not experienced ANY brain damage especially if he was in an ICU, where they were perfectly capable of intubating him and performing continuous CPR with ACLS proponents (using Epinephrine, Amiodarone and Vasopressin).
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