Getting to the hospital after a heart attack in a short amount of time could literally mean the difference between life and death. Going from Clinton to WakeMed’s Heart Center in Raleigh by transport could take an hour and 15 minutes, by helicopter — 20 minutes.

Emergency workers in Sampson County were alerted to a heart- attack victim Thursday afternoon and had to react accordingly in a mock emergency planned by WakeMed Hospital officials, denoting the critical part response time plays in those type of emergencies.

No one, from the telecommunicators who got the call to the responders, had any idea what they were responding to until the call went out around 1 p.m.

The idea was to test how quickly local emergency responders could get the victim, in this case a realistic $70,000 Human/Paitent Simulator known as Stan, from Halls Fire Department near Keener to the Spivey’s Corner Fire Department and airlifted to WakeMed’s Heart Center.

“It is all about the time,” said WakeMed’s Mark Dunn, who, along with four others, set up Stan at Hall’s Fire Department early Thursday morning. “It is about putting these responders in a situation and seeing how quickly they can get them treated.”

Sampson County was chosen to test the STEMI (ST-segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction) heart care program response for two reasons — one for the excellent relationship between the county and WakeMed and two, because of the distance from Sampson to Raleigh.

“Our protocol dictates that we transport STEMI patients to WakeMed, Cape Fear and New Hanover with heart attack patients,” said Ronald Bass, director of Sampson County Emergency Management Services. “The idea of this today is to get the patient to the Cath Lab (Cardiac Catheterization Lab) in a short amount of time.”

Bass said the goal is to have the patient from the scene and into that Cath Lab within 90 minutes.

“We feel confident that there are areas here in this county that we can drive to and get to WakeMed or Cape Fear within 40 minutes,” he said. “Some areas it will take longer. But we want to make sure that we can get that patient where he or she needs to be within a timely fashion.”

So when the Sampson County EMS telecommunications center got the set-up call from a woman who was from out-of-town and her father was having chest pains around 1 p.m. Thursday, the operator on the phone handled the call perfectly, officials said.

“The person at telecommunications was call and got all the information needed, having no idea this was a staged call. The person at telecommunications did everything perfectly,” said Susan Holder, interim county manager.

Emergency responders were asked not to use any flashing lights or speed since this was only a drill, but the response turned out to be impressive, said Holder, who, along with Bass, were observers of the event.

“I was thoroughly impressed,” she said, “ with everyone from the people at telecommunications to all of the responders to Halls and Spivey’s Corner fire department. And from the feedback I got from WakeMed, they were equally impressed. It was just an exciting experience.”

The new EMS director shared Holder’s sentiments and stressed the significance such drills play.

“It is a great opportunity to work with these professionals and practice what we would do in a real-live event, and it gives us an opportunity to look at what we are doing and to see what our strong points and what are weak points are,” added Bass. “It was a great learning tool for us.”

The team from Sampson County beat the 90-minute Cath Lab goal. Stan was transported by helicopter to WakeMed within 25 minutes.

“This was a unique and innovative way to understand how education can make such a dramatic impact in patient safety, and just making the care (of patients) better,” said Amar Patel, manager of the WakeMed Medical Simulation Center. “That is why we are here. What we hope to gain from this is to understand all the processes involved — we want to impact patient care; we want to get patients to the Cath Lab quicker, and we want to make everything safe for all involved ... our protocol is unique because it allows us to do the nurse/medic complement — we can take care of folks in a really critical situation for a long term, where EMS is designed for that short-term experience.”

The experience is something that is a compliment to Sampson County emergency management, said Holder.

“We just appreciate the opportunity to be involved in the exercise with WakeMed,” she said. “Anything that we can do to improve the care to the patients in Sampson County, we are going to do whatever it takes to aggressively pursue that opportunity and we are going to partner with people that allow us to do that — WakeMed is part of that. We have been very progressive in the development in our paramedic program and the procedures and protocols, and this is one of them.”

WakeMed officials said this was the first test in Sampson County, one they hope to continue around the state.

To reach Doug Clark call 910-592-8137 ext. 123 or send e-mail to sisports@myclintonnc.com.