Roberts had been a paramedic for 25 years before he began to drive buses at the Spokane Transit Authority in 2018.
Roberts still struggled to breathe. And one night he awoke to a sharp pain running straight through his chest. He felt like a sword had pierced his chest , and his difficulty breathing had gotten worse.
It took Roberts nearly two hours to come to terms with the fact that he was experiencing something he’d only treated before in medical emergencies for others. He had a pulmonary embolism, when blood clots block arteries in your lungs, and he needed to get to the hospital.
Many patients don’t know they have a pulmonary embolism until it’s too late. About 25% experience sudden death as their first symptom of the condition, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Administering blood thinners is still a part of treating patients with clots like Roberts, Castle said. But the procedure he performs is in addition to those medications in order to relieve pressure on the heart.
The FlowTriever System, like other tools to treat blood clots, is in clinical trials to evaluate their effectiveness in treating patients with clotting that threatens their lung or heart function. Roberts consented to the new treatment and technology and was enrolled in the clinical trial before he got the procedure.
COVID-19 has been tied to clotting in the blood for some patients, and some researchers believe this might be due to the inflammatory nature of the virus’ impact on the body.
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2022/m...d-one-man/
Roberts still struggled to breathe. And one night he awoke to a sharp pain running straight through his chest. He felt like a sword had pierced his chest , and his difficulty breathing had gotten worse.
It took Roberts nearly two hours to come to terms with the fact that he was experiencing something he’d only treated before in medical emergencies for others. He had a pulmonary embolism, when blood clots block arteries in your lungs, and he needed to get to the hospital.
Many patients don’t know they have a pulmonary embolism until it’s too late. About 25% experience sudden death as their first symptom of the condition, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Administering blood thinners is still a part of treating patients with clots like Roberts, Castle said. But the procedure he performs is in addition to those medications in order to relieve pressure on the heart.
The FlowTriever System, like other tools to treat blood clots, is in clinical trials to evaluate their effectiveness in treating patients with clotting that threatens their lung or heart function. Roberts consented to the new treatment and technology and was enrolled in the clinical trial before he got the procedure.
COVID-19 has been tied to clotting in the blood for some patients, and some researchers believe this might be due to the inflammatory nature of the virus’ impact on the body.
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2022/m...d-one-man/