First Aid Corps

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

Suffolk County police say the 37-year-old had no pulse when they were called to help him at about 6:40 p.m. Sunday at Mill Dam Park in Huntington.

Officers Ryan West, Timothy Tonkin, Anthony Iadevaio and Robert Musial used a defibrillator and performed CPR, with help from Huntington Community First Aid Squad volunteer Chris Winter.

The man began breathing on his own and was taken to Huntington Hospital.

No update on his condition was immediately available late Sunday.

It isn’t clear why he collapsed.

Suffolk police patrol cars are generally equipped with defibrillators.

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

83 year old Jack Folkins of Annapolis was with his wife, Margaret, in front of the Starbucks near the JCPenney store just before 4:30 p.m. when he had the attack and collapsed on a sofa, according to mall security and county Fire Department officials.

The mall’s security team, of Professional Security Consultants, was alerted to the medical emergency and officers stationed throughout the mall quickly sprang into action, said Sgt. David McMullen, a supervisor of the mall security crew.

Officers Hasan Nazzel and Ian Preuss ran to the customer-service counter in front of Lord & Taylor and grabbed a first-aid kit and one of three defibrillators at the mall, McMullen said.

They ran to Starbucks, where they joined McMullen and Officers Jamie Schmidt and James Millsap as they assisted Folkins, who was not breathing and did not have a pulse.

Courtney McCluskey, a physician who works for Franklin Square Hospital, was walking through the mall when she heard screams for help and ran to help. She and Folkins’ wife were already doing CPR when the security officers arrived, McMullen said. McCluskey was performing chest compressions on Folkins and his wife was breathing into his mouth.

Meanwhile, a large crowd was forming around Folkins.

As the officers cleared onlookers, McMullen placed the defibrillator on Folkins’ chest.

“I analyzed his body - then the (defibrillator) advised me to give him a shock,” he said. “At that point he wasn’t breathing and he didn’t have a pulse, either. I reanalyzed him, and another shock was not advised. I told the doctor to continue compressions and I gave him two full breaths.”

Soon after, Folkins regained consciousness and began breathing normally, McMullen said.

Paramedics arrived about a minute later to take over Folkins’ treatment.

“It was quite a miracle that he survived,” Folkins said, adding that her husband is at Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., awaiting heart surgery. “Everything was just beautifully done, and I feel like I have two angels on my shoulders.”

McMullen said the rescue was “an amazing experience.”

“This is my first life-saving experience since I’ve been here for four years,” he said.

“I’m very grateful for all of the people who helped us,” Margaret Folkins said Saturday. “I did the best I could under the circumstances, but they were absolutely wonderful - both the two ladies who came in as strangers and attended to us, and then also the security force at the mall.”

“They all used the training that they’ve received and acted in a very quick and smart manner,” he said. “I couldn’t be any more proud of them if they were my own sons.”

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

David Duke the Survivor

Feb. 13 started like a typical day, Duke said. The classes he taught that morning passed without incident, and he had just started his planning period. His last memory was standing at the classroom podium. What happened next, he learned from his co-workers.

Martha Wissler, a math teacher whose classroom is next to Duke’s, heard the loud thud caused by Duke collapsing and striking the wall with his head and shoulders.

Wissler, who was teaching a class, went to investigate and found Duke unconscious on the floor. A second teacher who happened to pass by, called 911 and the school’s administration office. That same teacher also alerted a registered nurse who happened to be at the school that day to teach a workshop.

Carrie Higdon, an assistant principal at the school, said when the defibrillator was hooked up to Duke, it indicated he had no pulse.

A single jolt from the machine, however, restored his pulse, and moments later, paramedics were rushing Duke to the hospital.

Duke was in a coma for five days. Doctors were able to clear a clogged artery that caused the heart attack. He returned to teaching seven weeks later.

Looking back, Higdon said the entire episode happened so fast, nobody had time to think. She considers it good fortune that it all worked out the way it did.

“It was one of those things where everything fell into place the right way,” Higdon said.

Duke, however, attributes his second chance at life to divine providence. He said the experience has tightened the bonds he has with his colleagues, especially those who acted so quickly to save his life.

“I’ve hugged them all several times,” Duke said. “I can’t thank them enough.”

“I would be a very strong proponent of every school having at least one,” he said. “I cannot stress their importance enough.”

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

Keith and Survivor Wife Angela Glotzbach

Tana Bolus, an emergency room nurse at Norton Audubon Hospital in Louisville, was arriving to watch her son play at Floyds Knobs Community Center on Monday when an adult collapsed in the stands.

Dr. Tom Harris, the Floyd County medical officer and an emergency room physician, also was present. His wife, who is a nurse, and two New Albany police officers were there too.

But Harris said it was the defibrillator more than the assembled medical and emergency expertise that “probably made a significant difference in the outcome of the case.”

It was Bolus, along with neighbor Kristy Smith, who used a $5,200 grant from the Horseshoe Foundation of Floyd County to purchase five defibrillators and distribute them to local ballparks.

And Bolus was there Monday night and helped put one into use to get the spectator’s heart going again.

Bolus said the device gave the person “a fighting chance.”

“I never expected we’d be using it that soon, that’s for sure,” she said.

The spectator was taken to Floyd Memorial Hospital.

Update

Glotzbach, 37, an active woman who felt fine, was in the bleachers on April 20 in Floyds Knobs watching her 7-year-old son Cory play baseball. Then her heart stopped, without warning or apparent cause.

Glotzbach spent nine days in the hospital and, as a precaution, has had a defibrillator and a pacemaker implanted. She looks good, regains strength, smiles like she won the lottery and made it recently to one of Cory’s end-of-the-year school events. She’s also the mother of daughter Maci, 10.

“I can’t feel sorry for myself,” Glotzbach said. “There are people out there worse off. I just feel I’m lucky.”

“It was the best-case scenario, that’s for sure,” Bolus said. She could tell Glotzbach was tough, a fighter, that night at the game, as her heart was shocked again and again into behaving itself.

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

Emilio Martinez the Survivor

17-year old Martinez had just wrapped up his daily workout in his advanced weights class Monday afternoon.

Physical education teacher Jay Johnson, an assistant Cienega football coach, saw Martinez faint, hit his chin on a weight bench barbell as he collapsed and drop to the floor unconscious.

Johnson is trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, as are all of Cienega’s coaches. He began attending to Martinez as a student ran to get Schneider.

“When I got there, I immediately assessed the situation and knew right away we needed the AED,” Schneider said.

“I’ve never actually had to use an AED or even do CPR before,” she said. “I’m trained for both, but never have actually been in a situation where I had to do it. It was sort of an out-of-body experience. I guess the training just took over and I was just doing what I knew to do to help him.”

“When we were done,” Schneider said, “I plugged this into my computer and it gave the paramedics and doctors a printout of everything that happened from the time I opened the AED to the time I closed it, including all his heart rates and any other info.”

Martinez, a seemingly healthy athlete in a family with no history of heart conditions, has been at University Medical Center since the collapse, frequently visited by friends and family members.

Philip, a landscaper, and Alberta, a bus driver, both 43, were at work Monday when they heard.

“This just came out of nowhere” the father said. “Right now, we just can’t say how grateful we are to the school, to Deana and Jay, and to everyone that helped keep him alive.”

“Without that (device) and without her there, the doctors said my son would have probably died,” said Phil Martinez. “. . . I can’t tell you how grateful my wife and I are that they were there and handling the situation the way they did.”

“It’s a shock,” Philip Martinez said. “At 17 years old, these kinds of things aren’t supposed to happen. The fact my son is here is testament to why schools should have them.”

“I’m just glad they were there to help me,” said Emilio, adding that the last thing he remembers was finishing class and heading to the locker room. It wasn’t until late Monday night that he awoke in the hospital to find his father by his bedside.

“I have no words,” said a tearful Alberta, who said she couldn’t sleep Monday because of the shock of nearly losing Emilio, the youngest of four who enjoys wrestling and is a middle linebacker on the football team.

“How do you say, ‘Thank you. Our son is here today because of what you did’?”

“That AED? It’s already paid for itself. Every (school) better have one. Even if they never need it, they better have one.

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

Mike Spillman the Survivor

“Mike, 17, collapsed in the school gym during a pickup basketball game.

Gym supervisor Ross Peterson, who is a physical education instructor, and students Joel Willenbring and Demetre Growette administered CPR.

A police officer quickly arrived on the scene and used the school’s automated external defibrillator to jolt Mike’s heart into rhythm.

“They brought me back,” Mike said quietly last week, sitting in the home dugout at John Burch Park in Cannon Falls, located between the Twin Cities and Rochester.

An ambulance took him to the local hospital and a helicopter transported him to St. Paul Children’s Hospital. He was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the heart muscle that forces the heart to work harder than normal.

Today, Mike Spillman was finally back in action, playing high school baseball after months of waiting for doctors to give him the go-ahead. In his first at-bat of the season earlier this month, the junior from Cannon Falls lashed a run-scoring double against Kasson-Mantorville. He later advanced to third base, sliding headfirst into the bag.

“When he did that, the fans were gasping,” Cannon Falls coach Bucky Lindow said.

The fans weren’t gasping at Spillman’s speed. They were gasping because he has a pacemaker in his chest.

Seeing Mike on the baseball field is a relief for his family. The hard part came in September, when he nearly died.

“I don’t even think about it, because he’s safer now than he was without the pacemaker,” Penny Spillman said of her son.

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

Police responded to a call of a man not breathing at 12:08 a.m. in the 300 block of South Pennsylvania Avenue, police said.

Upon arrival, responders used an Automated External Defibrillator, shocking the 65-year-old man once before he started breathing again and his pulse began to stabilize, said. Lt. Rob Lamborghini.

The man was transferred to Foothill Presbyterian Hospital where he was talking and alert, Lamborghini said.

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

Members of the Baxter fire department received the call at 11:03 a.m. Wednesday and were first to arrive at the scene at First Avenue North at 11:04 a.m.

“Toby (Lee, an engineer with the Baxter Fire Department) went in the home, I was gathering other equipment, and the gentleman was on the floor, obviously unconscious,” Baxter Fire Chief Chris Holmes said. “So Toby put the AED on him and it advised a shock.”

An AED detects two heart rhythms that require a shock, and the man was shocked once before emergency officials were instructed to begin CPR.

“On the way there he was becoming alert and waking up, and when we got him to the hospital, he was fully alert saying he wanted to go home,” Holmes said.

The man, who was not named but said to be in his 60s, was still in ICU at the hospital as of Thursday afternoon and was expected to recover.

“I have no doubt that they saved that man’s life,” Holmes said. “It was a team effort, and they just did a super job.”

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

Shocked teammates of the Delray Beach school, huddled in right field in a post-game meeting, had no idea what was happening Wednesday night after the team’s 5-4 win at West Boca High. Some screamed she was having a seizure. Claire Dunlap was not breathing.

“We were all laughing and were having a fun time before she fell down,” Heritage-Delray senior catcher Lauryn Wright told the Sun Sentinel.

“At first we didn’t think anything was wrong until she began convulsing like she couldn’t catch her breath.”

Palm Beach County Fire Rescue Capt. Roberto Grau who was watching his son finish a baseball game at a nearby field, came running over.

“I took a peek over there and saw a bunch of people gathered around somebody laying in the outfield,” said Grau, who has worked for Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue for 18 years, plus an additional three years in fire service.

“As soon as I looked at her I knew she was in cardiac arrest. I thought if she’s not coded, she’s about there.”

“People were in the panic mode,” said Grau, a 22-year veteran. “They were hysterical. I don’t think anybody really knew what was going on.”

With the school’s trainer, Grau placed an oxygen mask on Dunlap and then checked her pulse. There was none. They reached for an automatic external defibrillator, which the trainer carried in her golf cart, in an effort to revive her heart.

“We turned it on and it did its thing,” said Grau who helped the school’s trainer administer the shocks.

After three jolts, Grau saw her chest begin to rise, but she remained unconscious. Three minutes after she passed out, paramedics arrived.

Robert Stone is the Headmaster of the American Heritage School. He says, “I think they were trying regular CPR and she was not responding. She was at great risk and if they had not had that (defibrillator) she might not have made it.”

“No prior warning at all in fact she had a perfect day at school. I was with her for part of the time working on a project.”

Dunlap, 15, remains in intensive care at West Boca Medical Center, where the sophomore will undergo tests to determine what caused an apparent seizure that stopped her breathing and then her heart, Headmaster Robert Stone said.

Update

Sarah Donner hugs Claire Dunlap

In the American Heritage Delray 2A regional game Tuesday night, the team takes the field except for center fielder Claire Dunlap.

Dunlap stands in the dugout not because she’s benched and not because of grades, but because two weeks ago, she died.

“People were screaming ‘She’s having a seizure’ so immediately I said to one of the kids in class ‘Please go get the AED’ as I was running over there and when I got there I could tell it wasn’t a normal seizure. Something was wrong with her. I checked for breathing. I checked her pulse and she was unresponsive,” says Donner.

“I remember her mom holding her hand screaming ‘You have to save Claire, you have to save her’ and I remember thinking to myself… You have to do something to help this girl,” says Donner.

“Most of the time we take them to the hospital. We really don’t hear the end result so for this, kinda hit home, because I’m a baseball coach and we get to see the girls come in and out from the softball field so we have a little bit more tie to this and seeing the end result with Claire just making it better for us to see that she’s doing ok now,” says Manriquez.

“I’m just glad that we were able to make such a difference in a young person’s life,” says Grau.

Dunlap will have a better idea of when she can return to sports in about six weeks.

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

A Residential Programs and Services supervisor saw a 47-year-old RPS food services worker fall to the floor in a kitchen in Forest Quad, said IUPD Capt. Jerry Minger, reading from a police report.

Co-workers called 911 at 3:33 a.m., according to an IUPD press release.

IUPD Sgt. Shannon Ramey arrived and found the woman with an irregular heart rhythm and with trouble breathing, Minger said.

Ramey started CPR until IUPD Officer Joe Amandola arrived with an automatic external defibrillator, a machine that regulates heart rhythm.

Officers placed one electrode on her side under her arm and another on her chest so the machine could assess her heart.

The machine’s voice command told officers she needed a shock to reset her heart rhythm, Minger said.

The machine sent electricity through the woman’s body and her heart started to beat normally.

“The person would have died if this had not happened,” Minger said.

Officers continued to perform CPR breathing on the woman until a Bloomington Hospital ambulance arrived.

The woman had not complained about illness or discomfort prior to the incident, Minger said.