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Man dies after adrenaline left off ambulance in Akita

A man in cardiac arrest later died at a hospital in Akita after an ambulance used to transport him from his residence was found to not contain adrenaline doses (TV Asahi)
A man in cardiac arrest later died at a hospital in Akita after an ambulance used to transport him from his residence was found to not contain adrenaline doses (TV Asahi)

AKITA (TR) – A man in cardiac arrest later died after emergency personnel forgot to pack adrenaline doses in the ambulance that transported him to a hospital in Yuzawa City, reports TV Asahi (May 20).

At around midnight on Friday, the man, aged in his 40s, was loaded into the ambulance in cardiac arrest at his residence but died after adrenaline doses needed to resuscitate him were not found in the ambulance, authorities said.

The emergency personnel were ordered by a doctor to give the man doses of adrenaline en route to the hospital after resuscitation efforts using an AED (automated external defibrillator) at the home failed, but found there were no injections stored in the ambulance, authorities said.

The adrenaline was removed from the ambulance for maintenance work on May 8 and mistakenly left behind, authorities said, adding the man received adrenaline doses at the hospital but died at around 1 a.m.

A doctor at the hospital told authorities and the man’s family that the death had nothing to do with the fact that there was no adrenaline available, NHK reported (May 20).

The city’s fire department apologized to the family regardless of the doctor’s explanation, the Sankei Shimbun reported (May 20).

“We will strive to prevent this from happening again by reinforcing our management system,” the chief of the city’s fire department said.