BENSALEM, Pa. (AP) ― A suburban Philadelphia paramedic who died while pursuing a mentally ill patient died of a massive heart attack.

Police in Bensalem say 39-year-old Daniel McIntosh suffered a heart attack Sunday night while responding to a 911 call about a suicidal person.

Authorities say the patient ran and McIntosh pursued the man on foot. A second paramedic came upon McIntosh, who apparently sustained significant head trauma in a fall. McIntosh was transported to a hospital where he died.

Police do not expect any charges to be filed against the man who prompted the 911 call.

BY SHARON KIRKEY, CANWEST NEWS SERVICEFEBRUARY 26, 2010

Simply blowing up a blood pressure cuff around a person's arm when they're having a heart attack can reduce the amount of permanent heart muscle damage by up to half, an international team of researchers co-ordinated from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto has found.

Although it goes by the rather unwieldy name "remote ischemic preconditioning" the technique, developed by a doctor at SickKids, is exquisitely simple, cheap and apparently safe. It involves inflating a standard blood-pressure cuff on the upper arm of someone having a heart attack for five minutes, and deflating it for another five minutes, repeating the cycle four times.

The procedure exploits the most powerful, inborn protective mechanism the human body uses to protect its tissues from harm.

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Paramedic Kevin Mills is still a quadriplegic — but at least now he has a beer-fetching dog. (DAVE THOMAS/QMI Agency)

TORONTO -- Paramedic Kevin Mills is still a quadriplegic — but at least now he has a beer-fetching dog.

Yes, the answer to every Canadian lad’s dream. Praise the Lord Stanley, pass the pretzels.

And shake paws with the amazing Draco, a yellow lab who joined Kevin’s Newmarket household last week.

Draco has many talents, not the least of which is opening the fridge and bringing you a canned cold one in his pearly whites. Such as:

If Kevin, 29, falls from his wheelchair, he needs only whisper “help,” and Draco will bark nonstop until someone comes.

Drop a credit card? Draco picks it up. (Your ex knew the same trick?)

Or he fetches the remote. Or an apple. (Excuse the drool.)

If Kevin forgets, Draco lets the family’s older retriever, Ellie-Mae, outside for a pee.

I meet Kevin and Draco outside a Boston Pizza in Downsview, near Toronto EMS headquarters.

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FEBRUARY 28, 2010

Karl Harris, a British paramedic, allegedly refused to help a dying man, telling his trainee colleague there was "no point", a British court has been told.

The victim, 420-lb Keith Baker, who lived alone in Brighton, England, had phoned emergency services after experiencing trouble breathing.

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