We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore.
Coach Drew Black the Saviour
“I was on the rowing machine [when] on my right, I noticed someone standing next to the treadmill, looking at someone else who was lying face-down on the machine,” Ahmed, a certified EMT, wrote in an e-mail to The Argus. “I checked for level of responsiveness; he was not responding to verbal communication.”
There are two public-access automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in the Freeman Athletic Center, both on the upper level—one to the right of the entrance to the fitness center, and one outside the hockey rink corridor, across from the Bacon Field House entrance.
As Ahmed rushed outside the fitness center to retrieve the AED, Kavett made sure the emergency responders were notified.
Jamal Ahmed the Saviour
“I ran to the phone, where someone else (an older man) connected with the 911 operator,” Kavett wrote in an e-mail to The Argus. “Soon thereafter, another person called—I think—directly to the fire department, since they are just a block away from Freeman. While Jamal and Coach Black worked on reviving the collapsed man, I waited by the downstairs door for the firefighters (they were expected to get there first) to arrive at Freeman, to make sure they reached the man as quickly as possible.
”The defibrillator advised a shock, which Ahmed delivered before beginning CPR. Ahmed delivered 30 chest compressions, followed by two breaths from Black. After Ahmed performed another round of compressions, Black attempted to deliver two more breaths but was unable to open the patient’s jaw.
“His mouth was cemented shut,” Black said.
“Jamal was like, ‘Modified jaw thrust! Modified jaw thrust,’ a thing that you do especially with someone who has had a head injury—you don’t move the neck. As he’s trying to do that, I re-tilted the head and pulled the mouth open.”
After this, the defibrillator analyzed the patient and again advised another shock. Ahmed delivered the shock and resumed CPR in conjunction with Black.
“I had asked a bystander…to lift the patient’s legs to keep the blood going to his vital organs,” Ahmed wrote. “We continued CPR until the machine began analyzing again, and this time it advised no shock. We continued CPR and the patient began to breathe again, and even woke up and was slightly responsive/aware, but he could not say his own name.”
“The second time he came through, his hand came up,” Black said. “I grabbed his hand, and I just said, ‘Stay with us. You’re here, stay with us. You’re going to be fine.’ As I was doing that, the EMTs got there.”
“They inquired if I had delivered the shocks,” Ahmed said, “and I said, ‘Yes, twice,’ to which they responded, ‘Beautiful.’”
“[The EMTs] just said, ‘Hey, you guys did a great job,’” said Black, who said of Ahmed, “He’s going to make a hell of a doctor. He’s already saved his first patient.”
The patient was taken to Middlesex Hospital and later transferred to Yale-New Haven Hospital.
