First Aid Corps

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

Will Orndorff the Survivor

Senior Will Orndorff’s chest met sophomore Shelden Stickley’s head as both went for a fly ball in the outfield during practice March 31 at Sandy Hook Elementary School’s fields.

While Stickley suffered a concussion, Orndorff had to be airlifted to Winchester Medical Center. He had suffered a rare condition known as commotio cordis, in which the heart’s rhythm becomes irregular.

Luckily for Orndorff, a coach performed manual CPR until rescue workers arrived and shocked his heart.

Orndorff is doing well and plans to go to Bridgewater College in the fall and play football, his father said.

“You would never know anything ever happened,” Jack Orndorff said. “Everybody’s quick action from the coaches to the rescue squad to the helicopter, and everybody involved in the hospital, everybody was very proactive. Everything we’ve been told was everything had to work together and it did, and he was very fortunate.”

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

Her co-workers feared the worst when they found her collapsed on the floor.

“I found her laying on the floor, she was quite discolored, and truthfully – can I say this? – I thought she was dead,” Sunny Hawkins, a co-worker and former maternity ward nurse, said.

“We all thought she was,” fellow co-worker Lori Humphrey said.

Hawkins used a breathing mask to force oxygen into Niemeyer’s lungs. A co-worker did chest compressions to keep her blood pumping. A defibrillator had been brought over by the time the paramedics arrived, a minute or two after Humphrey made the 911 call.

Six days later, Niemeyer woke up in Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia.

“The team really deserves some credit, I’ll tell you,” Niemeyer said. “It is amazing. Until I woke up, they didn’t know how long I’d been without oxygen.”

Paramedics revived Niemeyer with a defibrillator and restored a pulse before taking her to the hospital, where she was intentionally kept unconscious for days. She now has a pacemaker.

Hawkins insists the entire thing was a miracle: Someone found Niemeyer before she had gone too long without oxygen, the safety officers were nearby, the paramedics arrived immediately, and Niemeyer was taken to a hospital that specializes in cardiac care.

But all that shouldn’t take away from the ability of the average person to save a life, Hawkins added.

“Don’t think you have to do it perfectly,” she said. “If you think you can intervene and help someone, err on that side.”

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

Olajuwon “OJ” Somerville helped take his Sabis International Charter School wrestling team to top last year.

The 17-year-old was a star-athlete crushing the competition…until his heart stopped after a match in January.

OJ’s memory fails him trying to remember the days leading up to his near-death experience, “I really don’t remember much from that day.”

So one could imagine the shock that OJ felt, after learning how his coaches, parents and students brought him back to life, and then to hear he could never compete again.

“I woke up at the hospital three days later they told me I had a heart attack,” recalled Somerville.

If it weren’t for quick action, CPR and an AED defibrillator, he wouldn’t be alive today. “It’s vital because it could save a lot of lives. In fact, there was a kid that had a heart attack before me and died because he didn’t have one,” said Somerville.

In the wake of OJ’s life and death scare last winter, more students at Sabis have come forward asking they be trained in these live saving techniques. “I have a handful of students interested in taking CPR after OJ. We started three years ago training all staff,” said Sabis nurse Kathleen Dupuis.

“The benefit it gave us saving OJ’s life, to me, it makes sense,” said wrestling coach Alex Seid.

For OJ and his school, this was one life or death match where teamwork lead to victory.

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

Rick Rockwood (center) with his Saviours

Duluth firefighters, trained as emergency medical technicians, were there Friday, too, but only for photographs this time. The last time they responded to the gym to see Rockwood they brought him back to life.

Rockwood, 57, had a heart attack during noon basketball on Nov. 28.

He had played in one game and was getting ready to start another. “All of a sudden I grabbed my face and said, ‘Uh-oh guys, I need help.’ They said I was gone before I hit the floor. It’s the widow-maker [an occluded artery] that got me. It was a fatal heart attack, meaning I had died. I had gone.’’

George Balach, a Duluth dentist who was there to play basketball, started performing CPR as someone else called 911.

Duluth Fire Station No. 2 is only 1½ blocks away, and firefighters were there in less than a minute, said Capt. Joel Heikes of the Fire Department. Heikes, fire equipment operator Brad Bushey and firefighter Alex Owen arrived with an external heart defibrillator, used to shock the heart to make it beat after it has stopped.

“I had an out-of-body experience,’’ Rockwood said. “I was standing and all the guys were around me and I guess they were praying. I was watching the EMTs get the defibrillator out. They cut my jersey off.’’

In reality, the firefighters found Rockwood on his back with Balach performing CPR. “That’s a key to a successful story — quick CPR and quick defibrillation,’’ Heikes said. “We continued CPR while I was getting out the defibrillator. We confirmed that he had no pulse. We analyzed it and it advised us to shock him, and after the first shock we got a pulse back. We put an airway in. That was great. It doesn’t happen all the time like that, but that was great.’’

The father of three adult sons said he had no history of heart problems or any health-related issue. He was adopted, and for that reason he scheduled regular physicals because he had no family medical history.

“I had no burn marks and no brain damage, although that’s debatable according to the guys I play basketball with,’’ he said of being zapped by the defibrillator.

“My biggest point is that George and those firefighters saved my life. If they wouldn’t have been there and the firefighters wouldn’t have had the quality training that they did, I would be dead — period.

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

Nanette Hagen the Saviour

At about 11:30 a.m. Friday, one of the school’s secretaries notified St. Helens High School principal Nanette Hagen that a man was out in front of the school asking for help for his friend who was having a heart attack. The men had driven up to the school and parked in the fire lane in search of aid.

“I got his feet up here and I was immediately down on my knees. Felt for a pulse and checked for breathing and started chest compressions immediately,” says Hagen.

The high school principal immediately sent a couple of students inside to have someone bring out the school’s automatic defibrillator.

With the help of a fellow staff member, a retired firefighter, they followed the machines directions. When the defibrillator indicated the man needed an electric shock to keep his heart pumping, Hagen didn’t hesitate.

She then continued chest compressions until paramedics arrived.

“At the time, I just responded,” she said.

Hagen’s actions sustained the man’s life long enough for him to get to Good Samaritan Hospital.

“I sure wish I knew what the outcome was,” Hagen said.

Although the administrator shies away from the word hero, she is glad she was able to help the man as best as she could.

“It’s nice to know people think we have trained folks here,” Hagen said.

The school has multiple people trained to do exactly what Hagen did: an emergency response team that includes multiple teachers and classified staff. Glen Boles, a member of the team and a campus monitor, helped Hagen administer the defibrillator.

“We can say we did absolutely everything we could,” Hagen said.

Updates

It would be days before she’d receive confirmation of her success.

A phone call from a family member of the victim brought her to tears.

“She said he made it. He’s still having a little bit of issues, but he made it. I just started crying.”

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

Glenn Koenen the Survivor with Daughter Cassaundra Koenen

At 10 a.m., about half an hour before graduation ceremonies were to begin at the Knapp Center in Des Moines, Koenen’s father, Glenn Koenen, slumped to the floor, suffering from a heart attack.

Someone shouted for help. Annie Swanson, an emergency room nurse from Minneapolis, was at the Knapp Center to see her niece, Molly Rafmussen, graduate. She leaped out of the stands and rushed to Glenn Koenen’s side.

He was dead and had no pulse, but I gave him CPR and chest compressions for about two minutes and he started to wake up, and then the defibrillator came,” Swanson told Tory Olson, a Drake spokeswoman. “We just improvised, and I’m so glad he lived.”

Drake staff members Michael Ball and Matt Miller and an unidentified doctor arrived with a defibrillator.

The machine shocked Koenen’s heart back to life.

Des Moines Fire Department medics took Koenen to Mercy Medical Center, where he was listed in serious condition and was scheduled for bypass surgery.

When Koenen stabilized, he groused that he wrecked daughter Cassaundra’s big day. A nurse contacted Drake officials, hoping someone from the school could deliver her diploma.

Drake President David Maxwell and a handful of Drake administrators visited Cassaundra Koenen and her father in his hospital room Saturday afternoon to present the younger Koenen, a native of St. Louis, with her degree in graphic design.

A teary-eyed Cassaundra Koenen thanked Maxwell.

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

31-year-old Jason Lewis, a student at Daytona State College’s law enforcement academy, earned his certification on Tuesday night and on Wednesday helped revive a coach who had collapsed at the school’s fitness center.

“I just went over to see if he was okay, and I saw him go down,’ said Tosi describing his reaction when he rushed to save Mike Phelan.

Phelan, a faculty member at Daytona State College, collapsed at the school’s gym on Wednesday. Tosi, and two students who were nearby, rush to him.

Baseball coach Mike Phelan was not breathing.

“We had some students who were qualified, doing CPR on him. They did an excellent job,” Tosi said.

Tosi ran over and grabbed the automated external defibrillator, or AED .

“You’ve got two, and there’s an electrical lead to it,” he said. “We all kind of worked as a team and got it on him.”

It was the first time, an AED had ever been used since the college acquired the devices.

“You’re a little nervous and all, but you just kind of remember your training.”

As for the faculty member who collapsed. One shock was administered and he regained consciousness.

“He was in surprisingly goods spirits,” said Tosi.

Phelan is recovering at Halifax Medical Center in Daytona Beach.

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

The Texas House adjourned abruptly Tuesday night after state Rep. Edmund Kuempel, R-Seguin, was found collapsed in a Capitol elevator.

A House sergeant at arms, Jennifer Irby, said she had found Kuempel, 66, in an elevator about 10:30 p.m. It’s unknown how long he was in the elevator before he was found.

Rep. John Zerwas, R-Richmond, an anesthesiologist who was called to help revive Kuempel.

Rep. Edmund Kuempel the Survivor

Zerwas said that when he reached Kuempel, he was unresponsive, was not breathing and had no pulse. Zerwas said he oversaw CPR until EMS arrived.

Zerwas and paramedics used CPR and a defibrillator to resuscitate Kuempel, shocking him eight times before they established a steady pulse.

By the time Kuempel left for the hospital, he had a heart rhythm and a pulse, and though he was not breathing entirely on his own, he had “some spontaneous breathing,” Zerwas said.

Lawmakers in the House immediately adjourned upon learning of Kuempel’s collapse. They huddled, many crying, praying and waiting outside the Capitol elevator shaft where Kuempel was found.

He is reported, as of Wednesday morning,to be in stable condition but that the next 24 to 48 hours will be critical for him.

Updates

State Rep. Edmund Kuempel says he’ll be back for the end of the session festivities.

“There’s no question that I will be back on sine die, if I have any strength at all,” Kuempel said Monday.

“I feel good now — weak — but good,” he said. He jokes about returning to his birth weight after having lost so much weight in recent days.

“I could be back for hugs and kisses for sine die,” said Kuempel, known for his wit and daily kisses for his female colleagues.

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

Mr and Mrs Seifer

Adam and Jane Olsen were at Jesse Lee April 19, preparing for the baptism of their children Allyson, 3, and infant, Jazlyn. The baptism had been originally scheduled in May but was moved at the last minute. They had arrived at the service a little early with a group of family and friends to make sure they had seats.

The Olsens’ friend, Katie White, was outside the church with her daughter as Ms. Seifer collapsed. Ms. White called for help.

Mr. Olsen is a cardiology physician assistant and several other family members are in the medical field, including his cousin Joe Lodato, who is an EMT in Westchester.

Mr. Lodato began mouth-to-mouth and Mr. Olsen administered chest compression.

Paramedics Michael Drake, Capt. Rick Lawlor, medic Bob Coppola and Nick D’Angelo arrived with an ambulance carrying state-of-the-art cardiopulmonary resuscitation equipment.

EMTs delivered defibrillation three times on the scene and got Ms. Seifer’s pulse back.

“You were feisty — that’s what they called you,” Chief Burford said to Ms. Seifer at their home last week. “You tried to take the breathing tube out so you could breath on your own — that’s a very good sign. You weren’t even in the hospital yet when the doctor took the tube out.”

“I never thought I’d see you again,” Mr. Seifer told his wife. “Her friends came here to tell me she had no pulse and was on her way to the hospital.”

When Mr. Seifer arrived his wife was awake but a little confused.

“If a defibrillator had been there we could have gotten her back even sooner,” he said.

“They [rescue workers] jump-started my heart,” Ms. Seifer said. “It was an electrical failure of the body.”

“It was truly miraculous,” Mr. Seifer said.

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

Victor Quick was at Antioch Baptist Church on March 1 when he “fell out.”

Quick is the city of Graham’s utilities director. Members of the church and some who were also members of the White Cross Fire Department leapt into action, performing CPR.

That immediate action was credited with saving Quick’s life.

On Tuesday, the city council issued proclamations honoring the 12 people who “participated in saving Victor Quick’s life.” They included David Atwater, pastor of Antioch Baptist Church; Kay Hammond, church member; Jerry Lloyd, church member and chief of the White Cross Fire Department; Warren Atwater, deputy chief and church member; Greg Tilley and Robert Smith, retired from White Cross and church members; Jeff Mooney, captain and Jason Andrews, lieutenant at White Cross; and first responders David Nichols, Tony Blake, Karen Durham and Chris Miller. Miller was in church that morning to be baptized.

“The doctor says there was no damage to my heart,” Quick said and then joshed, “even with a broken sternum and four ribs” from treatment.

Quick said he was in a controlled coma for a few days and credited the defibrillators with saving his life.

Lloyd said the first responders used a defibrillator three times on Quick to get a response.