First Aid Corps

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

Brian O’Leary was running up the court at the end of his weekly game in the YMCA’s over-50 basketball league, just as he has done thousands of times in thousands of other games over the years.

Only this time he felt different. First he became very dizzy. Then he felt himself falling down. The next thing he remembered, he was in an ambulance headed for Beverly Hospital.

Mary Ellen Mayo wasn’t even supposed to be at the YMCA’s Sterling Center on the night of Feb. 4. She had switched shifts with a colleague in the manager-on-duty rotation.

When she heard someone running to the front desk to call 911, she grabbed the first-aid kit and the automated external defibrillator that is always on hand at the Y.

By the time she reached O’Leary lying on the basketball court, he had stopped breathing and his heart had stopped beating. His face was deep blue.

Mayo tossed a CPR mask to a doctor who had stopped at the Y to pick up his son from swimming lessons. While the doctor administered CPR, one of the basketball players pressed on O’Leary’s chest.

The reading on the defibrillator showed no heartbeat. So Mayo, who has been teaching lifesaving classes for years, placed the pads on O’Leary’s chest and gave him one shock. His heart started beating, and his pulse returned.

“I had the easiest job because the machine tells me exactly what to do,” Mayo said. “The doctor and the player were the first responders.”

“If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be here,” O’Leary said. “That’s what the doctor said. He didn’t even know how she brought me back.”

O’Leary’s wife, Marie, said she has heard stories about how expertly and calmly Mayo responded that night.

“She was really, truly a hero in this whole thing,” she said.

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

When Gary Terry, a former telecommunications executive called it quits after a 32-year career, he took up an equally time-consuming volunteer job as chairman of the American Heart Association’s Texas chapter.

“I was trying to get back to the metroplex because I had a meeting the next morning. I reached down to pick up my briefcase, and I kept going.”

Here’s where the story takes an ironic twist: Gary Terry collapsed just 18 feet from an automated external defibrillator AED that he and his group — the American Heart Association — helped to install just eight months earlier.

But the circumstances of Terry’s experience are unique, because there was a defibrillator nearby, and somebody knew how to use it.

“I think this is part of the plan, and I think he wants me to keep telling people what a great piece of equipment the AED is.”

“I’m gonna try to put AEDs in every building and in every house, and then I’m gonna hang them on trees.”

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

Without warning, Greg Boorsma, 39 years old, became a little shaky and collapsed on the bench during a recreational hockey game during the Aaron Kitchen Memorial tournament.

Beside him was Paul Lymburner, who has been in similar situations and recognized the severity of the situation. He has administered CPR in the past and he knew Greg required it. He immediately called out for teammates to find his wife Colleen, who is a nurse and was watching, along with another friend and nurse, Tracy House.

They rushed to the bench and found that Greg’s vital signs were absent.

Another teammate, Mike Schmalz, was on the ice when the episode began.

But upon realization that the nurses could not get a pulse, he immediately rushed to the lobby to retrieve the recently-installed defibrillator. Others called for staff to call 911.

Greg was transported to Haldimand War Memorial Hospital before being transferred to Hamilton General, where he remains in stable condition.

Although the situation was grave at the time, Joanie said, “Thank God it happened when it did and there people there to help and do what needed to be done,” she said.

Joanie was very thankful for her friends and Greg’s teammates. “We owe Colleen and Tracy a world of thanks. They’re angels,” she said.

“I was sitting with Tracy and Colleen and we thank our lucky stars that we had the help we had,” said Joanie.

“Everyone involved was wonderful. Mike (Schmalz) took charge and made sure the girls had room to work. The whole team was just wonderful, awesome,” she said.

She added, “Thank God the defib was in the area.”

And although Tracy had never used a defibrillator before, she had performed CPR at the hospital. She was happy to have her lifelong friend Colleen, who has had experience using the defibrillator in the hospital, beside her.

“When we’re doing this, we’re thinking about his wife beside us and his three children and we thought, ‘We have to get him back; this has to work’, said Collleen.”

“I’m still a bit shaky but feel great that it worked. It (the defibrillator) was there and it worked. We definitely had to have the machine,” added Colleen.

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

Eric McDonnell, an athletic trainer, said it happened at about 12:25 p.m., 35 minutes before tip-off. A relative of the man noticed he was having trouble breathing and, with assistance of ushers, brought him to a “backstaging area” at court level and laid him on an exercise mat.

A university police officer performed emergency breathing, an usher applied the pads from the defibrillator device to the man’s chest and another performed chest compressions. Within minutes, the device detected a “shockable rhythm” and restored the man’s heartbeat.

“I don’t think anyone in the crowd actually realized what happened,” McDonnell said. The entire process “worked just like it’s supposed to.”

“I feel that all those involved with this incident showed extreme professionalism in taking care of this man in his moment of need,” said Frank Hoelzeman, an events assistant who was on the phone with emergency medics throughout the incident.

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

Black was in the Andersen Fitness Center preparing for his 1:10 Introduction to Strength Training class, while Ahmed was there for a workout along with Jason Kavett ’09 and Matthew Danzig ’09. 

“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.

“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.