Reuben’s life saved by ‘last resort’ drug

Photo: Mercury Press

CHARLIE and Darren Edwards (right) and children Reuben and Delilah. Copyright: Mercury Press

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A SADDLEWORTH tot with a heart rate so high doctors thought their equipment was broken was saved by a drug which effectively “killed” him.

A GP who checked 18 month old Reuben Edwards’s pulse during a routine appointment was shocked when it read 245 beats per minute - more than three times the rate for a healthy child.

By the time the toddler was rushed to hospital his pulse had passed 250 bpm — causing monitors to display an error message because the rate was too high to measure.

Doctors were forced to inject him with a drug, adenosine, that brought his pulse down by blocking his heart’s abnormal electrical impulses - but the move could have stopped it completely.

Reuben’s mum Charlie Edwards said: “The adenosine effectively restarted his heart so it would go back to a normal rate. It is so hard to know your child’s life is completely in someone else’s hands — there is nothing you can do but wait.”

The drama began out of the blue when Charlie took Reuben to her local GP because he had been suffering from a cough and mild rash.

After listening to his chest the doctor read the toddler’s pulse and was shocked when it read 245 bpm.

The concerned doctor tested the machine on Charlie and himself and even tried a different one before worriedly phoning an ambulance, never having seen that high a reading before.

By the time Reuben arrived at hospital his pulse was too fast for the equipment to measure it. When other methods failed, medics gave Reuben a “last resort” injection of adenosine - and the drug almost halved his heart rate in seconds.

“The doctors’ said the adenosine stays in the body for eight seconds, and that it would be the worst eight seconds of his life. As soon as they injected him his eyes rolled back and he arched his back.

“I keep thinking about what would have happened if I didn’t get an appointment at the GP surgery that day. It was so lucky.”

Reuben was diagnosed with supra-ventricular tachycardia (SVT), an abnormally fast heart rate of more than 100 BPM. Doctors have still not confirmed exactly what caused the SVT but believe it could have been triggered by the mild virus Reuben was suffering.

Theatre worker Charlie (34), married to 41-year-old firefighter Darren Edwards, later penned a facebook message in thanks for the work of the doctors and in support of their recent strike moves.