Stephen Joy is a 16-year-old student with no prior cardiac or medical history who was taking no medications before going to a concert in The Point Theatre in Dublin in March.
While at the concert, without any warning, he collapsed to the ground. As commonly happens, it was presumed that he had a fainting spell. However, he did not regain consciousness and, critically, he had no palpable pulse. Fortunately, an automatic external defibrillator (AED) was available thanks to the Event Medical Plan at the Point. The device was able to sense that Stephen had a very rapid, chaotic heart rhythm, too fast to effectively pump blood around the body. The arrhythmia is called ventricular fibrillation and the AED was able to treat this with a single electrical shock, which immediately restores the heart rhythm to normal. Because of the few minutes delay in making the diagnosis and getting the AED to deliver its therapy, Stephen did not wake up immediately but remained on a life support machine for several days in the Intensive Care Unit in the Mater Hospital, Dublin. Two weeks later, he underwent implantation of an automatic internal defibrillator. The device is placed under the collarbone and monitors the heart rhythm through a plastic-coated wire, which is passed to the heart through a vein. If the heart rate goes over 200/min, the device will charge up and deliver a shock to restore the rhythm to normal. Having been resuscitated and implanted with a defibrillator, his prognosis is now excellent.