Their quick actions save his life

Two nurses helped a man whose face had turned blue after he fell down and started jerking on the floor of an MRT train.

Soon, four others who had some form of medical training also helped the man, who suffered a cardiac arrest at the Buona Vista MRT station and lost his pulse.

They performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), then hooked the man onto an automated external defibrillator (AED), managed to get a pulse, and helped get him to hospital.

SMRT and the commuters who managed to save the man's life were yesterday given the Public Spiritedness Awards for their deed.

Senior staff nurse Nurhana Mohamad, 30, said that at about 6.30am on Oct 28, she was on her way to work when she heard a loud thud in the carriage next to hers and saw a man having fits.

Miss Nurhana told The New Paper: "The train was not really crowded then, so I rushed over and saw the man suffering from an epileptic seizure.

"Quickly, another woman (nurse Xue Dan) and I turned the man, who was also foaming then, to the side in order to place him in recovery position," said Miss Nurhana, who works in the Emergency Medicine Department at National University Hospital (NUH).

But he suddenly stopped moving.

The nurse of 10 years said: "His face turned slightly purplish blue and when I realised he had no pulse, I quickly performed CPR on him."

The other nurse, Mrs Xue Dan, 31, had earlier seen the man fall.

The advanced diploma in nursing student at Nanyang Polytechnic said in Mandarin: "The man, who is about 1.8m-tall, boarded the train (at Buona Vista), and before he could sit down, he collapsed face-up, in front of me."

NO REACTION

The nurse of nine years rushed forward and tapped his shoulders to get a reaction to no avail, so she asked for someone to call for an ambulance.

RESCUERS: (Above) Miss Nurhana was first to perform CPR.

Then Miss Nurhana came and they turned the man on his side.

"While she did CPR, I held onto his head for support," said Mrs Xue.

Two students from National University of Singapore's Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine - Mr Peter Daniel and Mr Kevin Wui, both 21 - helped take turns performing CPR.

Nurse Hazel Tan, 27, who works in the Coronary Care Unit in NUH, monitored the man's pulse.

SMRT staff member Nurzanariah Zainudin, 29, stopped the train by pressing the emergency button and went to get the AED.

NUH's Dr Peng Kailing, 26, was at Buona Vista MRT, walking down the escalator for a train, when she saw the man who had been moved to the platform by then.

She helped monitor the man as the nurses used the AED on him.

Dr Peng said: "It was only after the second (AED) shock that his pulse came back and he became conscious after that."

She then accompanied him in an ambulance to NUH where he was treated for cardiac arrest.

Commander of 1st Singapore Civil Defence Force Division Colonel Alan Chow, who presented the awards at its headquarters in Queensway yesterday, commended the group.

He said: "Statistics have shown that out of hospital cardiac arrest cases, in Singapore, it's only three to four percent that people survive.

"But their quick thinking and actions saved a member of the public."

The man, who has been discharged from NUH, said: "When I entered the train, I felt numbness in my left leg. After that, all I remembered was waking up in the hospital.

"My heartfelt thanks go out to all those who helped that morning."