About 350,000 Americans suffer cardiac arrest outside a hospital annually, according to the American Heart Association. The prognosis for these people is grim: only about 10 percent survive the event. But for one Enfield, NH, man, what could have been the last day of his life happened in the right place at the right time.
On February 10, 2023, Terry Dion, 69, was driving on Interstate 89 in Lebanon when he went into cardiac arrest. He lost control of his vehicle and went off the highway. Little did he know that driving not far behind was Thara S. Ali, MD, a cardiology fellow at Dartmouth Health’s Heart & Vascular Center at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC).
As Ali drove closer to the scene, she observed another driver had pulled off and appeared to be performing CPR on Dion. She pulled over and noticed that the Good Samaritan’s chest compressions were too shallow. She explained she was a cardiologist in training and took over CPR. Other motorists started to pull off to help, including one who had a portable automated external defibrillator (AED) in their vehicle, which Ali was able to defibrillate Dion with.
EMTs arrived shortly after and took Dion to DHMC—where Ali would see him again later that day in the cardiac catheterization laboratory and assisted in deploying a stent to open up a blocked artery in Dion’s heart. Thanks to Ali’s heroic actions, performing CPR and AED long enough to keep Dion alive, he survived and is expected to make a full recovery.
“I feel really grateful for the outcome of what happened and that I was able to do that for Terry,” Ali said. “This is what I trained for as a cardiologist, but anyone can save a life by learning CPR.”
At a ceremony hosted by DHMC on Thursday, June 1, Ali was presented an award by the Lebanon Fire Department for her lifesaving actions, who called her “a true hero among us.”
“Not only has Dr. Ali committed her life to improving the lives of people every day through her work as a cardiologist, she has contributed to saving a life on her own personal time,” said Fire Chief Jim Wheatley. Wheatley also presented an award to Lebanon Police Officer Eric Hunter, who assisted Ali at the scene.
The award ceremony coincided with the kickoff of National CPR and AED Awareness Week, a nationwide effort to encourage people from all walks of life to learn CPR and how to use an AED, and improve the odds for people who suffer cardiac arrest outside a hospital.
“We are incredibly proud of Dr. Ali for her heroic actions that saved Mr. Dion’s life,” said David B. Min, MD, section chief of cardiology at the Heart and Vascular Center. “In the Heart and Vascular Center, we train fellows to be of service to people in need inside our hospital and out in the world, which is exactly what she did. But this is also an important reminder that you don’t need to be a cardiologist to learn CPR. Anyone can be equipped with this lifesaving skill.”
About Dartmouth Health
Dartmouth Health, New Hampshire’s only academic health system and largest private employer, serves patients across New England. Dartmouth Health provides access to more than 2,300 providers in nearly every area of medicine, delivering care at its flagship hospital, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) in Lebanon, NH. Its network of hospitals, outpatient centers, clinics and home care facilities, spans a broad geographical area. Year after year, DHMC is named the #1 hospital in New Hampshire by U.S. News & World Report, and is consistently recognized for high performance in numerous clinical specialties and procedures. Dartmouth Health includes Dartmouth Cancer Center, northern New England’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers and one of less than than 60 total nationally; Dartmouth Health Children’s, which includes the state’s only children’s hospital (Children’s Hospital at DHMC/CHaD) and more than 20 locations around the region; eight member hospitals in Lebanon, Keene, Claremont, Hampstead, and New London, NH, and Windsor and Bennington, VT; Dartmouth Health Home Care; Dartmouth Health Connected Care Center for Telehealth, serving patients as far away as Texas; and more than 30 primary and multi-specialty clinics across New Hampshire and Vermont. Through its partnership with Dartmouth College, Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine and the White River Junction VA Medical Center, Dartmouth Health trains nearly 400 medical residents and fellows annually and performs cutting-edge research and clinical trials with international impact. Dartmouth Health and its more than 16,000 employees are committed to serving the healthcare needs of everyone in the communities it serves and to providing every patient with exceptional, state-of-the-art, personalized care. Learn more at dartmouth-health.org.