An X-ray showed Price, 61, had virtually no lung capacity. His kidneys were shutting down. Sepsis, a potentially life-threatening infection, was setting in. He was dying.
“Sometimes, as a physician, you feel helpless. You see your patient dying in front of your eyes. It’s a difficult situation,” Dr. Kashlan adds.
Price was at a hospital that is about a 40-minute drive away from Beaumont Hospital – Royal Oak. The 61-year-old would not survive an ambulance ride.
The only way to safely transport Price was in the air. So, Dr. Kashlan called his colleagues at Beaumont Hospital—Royal Oak and asked them to send the Beaumont One helicopter.
“I went from being hopeless to hopeful. It was amazing. Deep inside my heart, I knew he would make it if he could be airlifted,” Dr. Kashlan says.
Soon after, a Beaumont One helicopter crew arrived at the hospital and loaded Price into the aircraft.
“The Beaumont One crew was amazing. They had to take him off the ventilator at the other hospital and then transfer him to the helicopter’s machine. They gave him a medicine to make his lungs expand. He would not have survived any other way,” Price’s wife, Janice Price, says.
The helicopter includes sophisticated equipment not available in an ambulance. Plus, the flight crew has additional specialized medical training beyond traditional paramedics. It’s essentially a flying intensive care unit.
“We carry a special inhaled medication that helps the lungs of patients like Mr. Price. It's called nitric oxide. It makes the areas of the lungs that are still functioning work better. The medication requires specialized equipment that works with our ventilator. Since it's inhaled straight to the lungs, we started seeing improvements in minutes,” Beaumont One Flight Paramedic Marie Wilkinson says.
Six minutes later, they landed just outside the Beaumont Hospital – Royal Oak Emergency Center. A team including two perfusionists, two attending surgeons, two senior residents and several nurses were waiting for Price to arrive. Doctors connected Price to Beaumont’s ECMO machine and his condition started to improve. ECMO, Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, is a process that allows a machine to do the work of the lungs and the heart. For the first week, the ECMO oxygenator allowed his body to breathe because his lungs were not working.
“Mr. Price is one of the sickest patients I have ever had the privilege to help. I'm glad I could play even a small part in his care,” Wilkinson says.
Beaumont Surgical Intensivist Felicia Ivascu, M.D., diagnosed Price with vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels. “Without Beaumont One, he would not have survived the transport to Beaumont Hospital and would have died. The crew was in direct contact with me to make the trip as safe as possible,” she says.
Price remained in the intensive care unit for several months. He moved to a traditional hospital room. Then, several other medical problems extended his stay.
“I was so close to death. It opens your eyes. This is my second chance at life and I’m going to make the most of it,” Tony Price says. “I think there is something out there still left for me to do. There’s a reason I’m alive. God had a hand in it.”
Janice Price also believes her family’s faith in God and the expertise of the flight crew and medical staff at Royal Oak saved her husband’s life.
“I am so grateful to the helicopter crew and the doctors at Beaumont. They saved his life. My husband and I have four adult sons and it scares us all to think about how we almost lost Tony,” she says. The couple became friends as teenagers and recently celebrated their 43-year-anniversary.
In early September, Price stood for the first time since he collapsed at his Lake Orion home. Physical therapy treatments strengthen him every day. Now, after spending 105 days in the hospital, Tony Price is home in time to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family. He checked out of Beaumont Hospital-Royal Oak in Michigan on Monday.
“Everyone at Beaumont, from the cleaning crew to the doctors and nurses have been wonderful. They are a like a second family to me,” Tony Price says. “I am looking forward to living the rest of my life and getting back to my photography hobby. It’s incredible that I survived. I have so much to be thankful for right now.”
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