First Aid Corps

We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore.

Hockey Player Saved

Trevor Forest suffered a sudden cardiac arrest during a break between hockey scrimmages at the NAIT hockey arena two weeks ago. His quick-thinking teammates resuscitated him with CPR and a public automated external defibrillator, a portable device that sends electric energy to the heart to return the heartbeat to normal.

“These guys are more than my teammates, they’re my buddies,” Forest said at a press conference. “And that night, they became my heroes. Without their quick-thinking response, I would not be here today.”

He credited his longtime friend and teammate Kevin Pollitt for having the training to apply the public defibrillator to save his life.

We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore.Officers Stan Bruno and Manuel Ruiz were on routine patrol when they got a dispatch at 9:43 a.m. to help paramedics dealing with an unconscious 54-year-old man. When they arrived at the station, they saw that paramedics had yet to arrive, so they got the defibrillator from their squad car and brought it to the platform.

The officers placed the device on the man. When it told them he needed to be shocked, they charged the device and administered two charges.

“The second shock converted the man’s heart to normal sinus rhythm,” Deputy Fire Chief Mark Pugnaitis said.

When the paramedics arrived, they stabilized the man and took him to West Suburban Hospital, where is reportedly doing well and is expected to recover.

“If the patient didn’t get electric stimulation to his heart muscle within five to 10 minutes, he would have died,” he said, noting that when a heart flatlines, there’s a 1 percent chance of survival.

We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore.

“I was on my way to an experiment in Milbank, and then I heard a guy yelling,” Cassandra Stroud, BC ’12, said. “I went over and there was a guy lying on the floor.”

Stroud, who learned CPR in a sixth-grade babysitting course and had not practiced it since, taught a bystander to perform chest compressions before beginning to breath into the victim’s mouth.

“He didn’t know what he was doing,” she said of the man who she taught chest compressions to, “but I showed him how because I knew I couldn’t do it hard enough for long enough.”

“In spite of all the chaos—the radio calls, the additional security people responding, the phone calls to the office—she never missed a beat,” Public Safety Supervisor Jim Kelly said.

Kelly called for Public Safety’s defibrillator, which he applied twice without success. Paramedics administered a third defibrillation, as well as medication, finally restoring the victim’s pulse.

“When she heard they were able to restore the pulse, she just broke down,” Kelly said. “The emotion overwhelmed her at that point.”

“If it had been another 10 minutes and we had come upon him then, it would have been a very different story,” Kelly said. “She’s the hero here.”

We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore.

Matt Fiato’s hockey team was trailing by a goal. From the bench, he glanced at the clock, then turned to a teammate to complain about something in the game.

Matt Fiato and Family

“The next thing I knew, I was on the floor of the bench looking up,” said Fiato, 40, a father of three children ages 6, 8 and 11.

Fiato, who lives in Binghamton, said he was lucky to be at the BCC rink because it has a defibrillator, and several trained emergency medical technicians happened to be involved in the league. One of them, 19-year-old Dave Edwards, delivered the life-saving shock after rink employee Brett Carter retrieved the device.

Honestly, it’s an indescribable feeling to know I saw this guy die laying in front of me and to bring him back,” said Edwards, an EMT with the Apalachin Fire Department. “It makes you kind of feel like you did make a difference in somebody’s life.”

To his wife, Patti, the AED, along with the good Samaritans at the rink that night, are her husband’s guardian angels.

We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore.

Referee Mike Fazio had fallen unconscious at halftime of the sixth-grade girls basketball game on Thursday night.

When Fazio fell to the floor, Jeff and Jan Kreis of Shorewood, Jeanine Vogt of Minooka, and Michele Cermak of Minooka rushed out of the bleachers and began administrating CPR.

“He was cold and clammy and barely had a pulse,” she said. “We then lost his pulse and his breathing was faint. We could tell we were losing him.” After losing a pulse and respiration, Jeff Kreis began chest compressions as Vogt gave mouth to mouth.

Minooka Intermediate Principal Harold King, who was not in the gym at the time Fazio fell, brought the AED to the group working on Fazio.

“Someone handed me an AED and I opened it while Jan applied the pads,” Cermak said. “We all cleared and she gave a shock and we watched him slowly come out of it.”

He had no heart beat. No amount of chest compressions or mouth to mouth was going to bring him back,” she said. “He needed a shock to save his life. The AED is a lifesaver.”

“He was dying,” Kreis said. “He needed help. I never thought twice.”

Fazio was transported to a local hospital, where it was reported Friday he was doing fine.

We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore.

Kenzie Sikora

The incident happened after school at Paddock Elementary School. Kenzie was headed back inside the school when she collapsed just inside the front door October 21st. Principal James Otto was nearby and saw Kenzie fall. ”Kenzie was prone face down,” said Otto. “Knelt down to Kenzie and asked her if she could hear me. Made the decision that she couldn’t.” 

“I immediately started CPR and aspirations and to just kind of get her going because I knew something was wrong,” said Bridwell. “She wasn’t breathing. She was purple. Something was definitely wrong.” After 911 was called, he and sixth-grade teacher April Bridwell performed CPR.

School secretary Peggy Albertsen then hooked up the school’s automatic external defibrillator (AED) and used it to get Kenzie’s heart beating properly again. 

The machine said the girl’s heart needed an electric shock and it shocked her before paramedics arrived.

The girl was taken by ambulance to a hospital. School officials say the child is feeling better and continuing to recover.

Latest Updates (11/11/2008)

Kenzie Sikora, who collapsed at Paddock Road Elementary School three weeks ago returned to class on Monday.

“It feels great being back and seeing all my friends and how ecstatic they are to see me,” said Kenzie.

Kenzie doesn’t remember anything from that day except waking up in the hospital. “I’m just happy that I still have my life. God was with me through the whole thing and that the school had a defibrillator and that there were teachers here that knew CPR.”

Sikora’s mom, Jeanette Sikora, said she remembered everything.

“I was at work, I received a phone call saying, ‘Kenzie has fallen. We’re calling 911. How soon can you get here?”

“If this school hadn’t been prepared with the training and Mr. Otto and Mrs. Bridwell and Mrs. Albertsen, they’re our heroes. They saved my daughter’s life. But she may have still encountered damage had it not been for that AED machine being here.”

We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore.

“It was close to the end of the game,” said Mr. Vesters, who has no memory of the event as he played with his 10-month-old grandson Shaydon in the living room of his Oshawa home earlier in October. “I’m told I had a breakaway and was going in on goal. I went behind the net and just took a nosedive.”

He was immediately surrounded by teammates and soon arena lead hand Steve Parker became aware someone was down on the ice. “He ran off the ice to grab the defibrillator,” recalled facility booking clerk Christine Faulkner.

On the ice, Mr. Vesters’s hockey sweater had been cut off in anticipation of the need to use the defibrillator. At first, Mr. Vesters was breathing. But that soon changed.

Christine (Faulkner) indicated he wasn’t (breathing,)” Mr. Sutherland recalled. “He had started to turn purple.” Arena staff, Mr. Solomon, and another player, police office Tony Dwyer, began CPR, including mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. 

“In training, you get tired of doing compressions,” she said. But when she was doing it in a life-and-death situation, “I could have done it forever.”

The defibrillator provides prompts on what to do and when defibrillation is required. When the machine indicated the necessity of jump-starting Mr. Vesters’s heart, Mr. Parker put the paddles on his chest and gave him the shock.  Soon an ambulance arrived and attendants were able to take over Mr. Vesters’s care.

Arena staff couldn’t believe their eyes when Mr. Vesters showed up at the rink after he was released from hospital. All I remembered (from when she had done CPR on him) was his eyes,” she said. “I kept saying to him, you have the most beautiful blue eyes. It still chokes me up.”

“I flatlined three times,” Mr. Vesters said. “I was just lucky where I was (when the episode occurred) and who was there.”

“I would have been gone if it hadn’t been for the quick attention I received.”

We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore.

Soccer Player Saved

Kacsmar, a competitive soccer player, collapsed when his heart stopped during a game at the old Highlander Sportsplex last winter.

“First of all, they thought I was trying to fake an injury, like, typical soccer player,” Kacsmar recalled yesterday. “When they realized my lips were starting to turn blue and I wasn’t breathing, they started to do CPR.”

That didn’t work, but an arena worker came to his aid with a portable defibrillator. “The defibrillator saved me,” Kacsmar said.

“They’re totally idiot-proof,” Kacsmar said. “They talk you through everything. They tell you exactly where to put the pads and tell you either push the button or don’t push the button.”

After his heart stopped, he was put into a medically induced coma for two days while doctors ran tests to find out what happened. They found nothing, and concluded that sometimes the heart just stops.

“They’re not that expensive,” Kacsmar said. “And it only has to work once.”

We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore.

Sheehy was working in the cafeteria around 11:15 when Smith saw him fall. When she asked Sheehy if he was OK, he didn’t answer. After briefly trying to revive the man, who is in his 50s, she yelled for help.

Kuklentz and DeAngelis responded immediately. The two performed CPR on Sheehy. “(Training) takes over before everything else,” she said.

When he remained unresponsive, they turned to the school’s defibrillator. By the time EMTs arrived, Sheehy was responsive.

DeAngelis said the defibrillator saved Sheehy’s life. Cameron said hospital workers confirmed that.

“Everyone acted calmly, quickly, appropriately,” said Cameron. “They did an outstanding job.”

“These two brought him back to life,” Smith said, pointing to DeAngelis and Kuklentz and clutching her heart, “and I was so happy.”

We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore.

A foul ball hit Hollingsworth in the chest during the fourth inning of a Keystone State Games contest at Central York High School. Within seconds, he collapsed backward, not breathing.

His heart had stopped, and the 17-year old showed no vital signs. Fortunately, two doctors were at a nearby field and a heart defibrillator was available on site. His rescuers initiated CPR, reviving Hollingsworth with the defibrillator and rushed him to York Hospital, where he was kept until the following Sunday.

Few people survive the sudden heart stoppage that felled Hollingsworth, because “nobody has the defibrillators available to bring the kids back,” Brink said.

“This is a good opportunity to say we do need [defibrillators] in every kind of sport that we play,” said Dr. Devyani Chowdhury, pediatric cardiologist at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. “Every school should have it. It should not be locked up at the coach’s locker. It should be available.”