Extreme intervention
Como Lake Middle School principal Darren Stewart is back to work a few months after a near fatal cardiac arrest.
Royal Columbian’s hour-long effort to restore a Coquitlam principal’s heartbeat 10
As students enjoyed the first days of summer vacation, Darren Stewart was closing the books on another school year. The 49-yearold principal of Como Lake Middle School in Coquitlam was at home, winding down for the night, when he first grew uncomfortable. He thought it might be indigestion, but it eventually progressed to a cold and clammy feeling. By early next morning, Darren’s condition would dramatically deteriorate, necessitating a major lifesaving effort at Royal Columbian Hospital. “I would go to bed and try to fall asleep, but it wasn’t happening,” remembers Darren about a restless night trying to shake off his symptoms. “Eventually, I said to my wife we need to phone 911.” First responders confirmed Darren was having a heart attack, and he was sent by ambulance to Royal Columbian Hospital – the region’s emergency cardiac care centre and the busiest one in the province.
YOUR HEALTH MATTERS I ROYAL COLUMBIAN HOSPITAL FOUNDATION
Cardiac emergencies The hospital’s cardiac catheterization lab diagnoses and treats thousands of people each year, using catheters, balloons and stents to quickly restore the blood flow in blocked arteries without the need for major surgery. In recent months, donors to Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation have been helping to completely upgrade the equipment in both cath lab suites, ensuring the facility can continue to provide the highest level of care during cardiac emergencies. For Darren, his emergency took on a whole new level of intensity even before he was brought to the cath lab. Within minutes of arriving at the hospital, his heart completely stopped. “He had incessant cardiac arrests in the emergency room,” says interventional cardiologist Dr. Gerald Simkus. “He had to be defibrillated multiple, multiple times, every
