A Nebraska man's life may have been saved when the ambulance rushing him to hospital hit a large pothole, stabilizing his dangerously fast heartbeat.
The 59-year-old from Gretna suffered the emergency on Monday, April 15, after his heart started racing at 200 beats per minute, well above the healthy adult heart rate of 60 to 100 beats per minute.
Gretna Fire and Rescue responded to the call and sped through the 20-minute drive to the emergency room, hitting a pothole during the seven-mile trip.
The sudden jolt made the emergency truck jump, shocking the patient's racing heart back to a normal rhythm.
A 59-year-old man's life was saved when he was rushed to the hospital on April 15 for a dangerously high heart beat of 200 beats per minute and the ambulance hit a pothole, and the sudden jolt slowed and regulated his heart rate
Gretna Fire and Rescue responded to the call and sped through the 20-minute drive to the emergency room, hitting a pothole during the seven-mile trip, that may have ended up saving the man's life
Dr. Andrew Goldsweig says a rapid heartbeat is often treated with an electrical shock and the sudden jolt of hitting a pothole had the same impact in startling and slowing this patient's heart
The miraculous cure was reported via the Omaha Scanner on Twitter and on Facebook.
'Gretna Rescue enroute Lakeside Hospital with a patient with a heart rate of over 200 bpm. Gretna now calling them back to advise they struck a large pothole enroute which converted the patients heart to a normal rate! #OmahaScanner,' the scanner reported.
Patients with perilously high heartbeats are often treated with an electric shock to regulate their heart rates. The sudden impact of hitting the pothole provided a similar type of shock to the patient, and slowed his heart rate.
'It's rare, but it's a well-described phenomenon,' Dr. Andrew Goldsweig, of Nebraska