First Aid Corps

On May 9, 2007, Cpl. Jeffrey Bauer was on routine patrol when he turned onto Solomons Island Road and saw a car stopped. He approached and found the man inside slumped over the wheel, suffering from a heart attack.

Cpl Jeffrey Bauer the Saviour

Bauer performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation and, after using his defibrillator, he was able to revive the man, who survived.

The next day, he was called to a home for a cardiac problem nearby on Tarragon Court where a man had collapsed on the floor.

“Less than three minutes later, Cpl. Bauer was on the scene and calmly utilized his skills with CPR and his (defibrillator) to revive the victim, ultimately saving his life,” Capt. William Krampf, commander of the Southern, said.

Both families have thanked Bauer for his help in their time of need, Krampf said.

“It’s my job, that’s it,” he said later of his lifesaving rescues.

“He enthusiastically does his very best and helps motivate others around him to do their very best in spite of sometimes very little recognition,” Krampf said.

The story of the former Jordan volunteer firefighter and pilot started more than a year ago when he took up running to keep in shape.

Kelvin Williamson the Survivor

Winter came, pushing his training indoors. Williamson got a membership at the St. Catharines YMCA to help keep him in shape until the spring when he could get outside again.

By May, Williamson was once again running on Jordan’s quiet, secluded back roads. By June 10, Williamson realized he missed his training regimen at the gym and joined again the next day.

After his usual 10-minute warm-up jog, Williamson sidled up to a stationary bike, hopped on and started pedalling.

Moments later, Williamson blacked out and stopped breathing.

“I had no warning, no symptoms. I just fell into the guy next to me,” Williamson said.

For the next six minutes, as he lay on the floor, three Y employees raced to save him.

Duty manager Angela Barney, Sally Jane Southern- Grice and Jill Huntley, with a defibrillator in hand that she had been trained to use only two days earlier, administered CPR, did chest compressions and used the machine to shock Williamson’s heart back into action.

After 260 consecutive compressions on Williamson’s large chest — Southern-Grice did 100, Huntley 160 — life returned to Williamson.

“It was amazing feeling your breath coming back on my hand. It really was,” Huntley told Williamson Wednesday.

With his heart beating again, Williamson was whisked to hospital. He woke up after three hours, with a sore chest and feeling like he had just had “a really good nap.”

Days later, the father of three was undergoing quintuple bypass surgery, after it was determined his heart attack had been caused by blocked arteries.

“You realize how much there is to live for,” he said about his ordeal.

“I have a wife and three beautiful kids I’m now going to see get married and hopefully have grandchildren.”

On Wednesday, he and his wife, Judy, returned to the Y to say thank you to the women who saved him. He gave each a token of thanks — a hug and an angel figurine holding a heart.

Despite her quick comeback, Southern-Grice said the whole experience was overwhelming. “I’m just overwhelmed — overwhelmed then and overwhelmed now,” she said.

“I feel relief to see him happy and healthy,” Barney added.

Barney, Southern-Grice and Huntley deserve credit, Williamson said.

“So does the Y for having the training and having the budget for a defibrillator.”, he said.

While driving home Sunday evening, Jim Boor was taking the Century Avenue exit in White Bear Lake when something in the ditch caught his eye.

“What we found down there was a car in the ditch with a man slumped over the steering wheel and it looked like he was having a coronary, having a heart attack,” said Boor.

Boor and another passer-by pulled the man from the car and they started CPR.

Boor said nothing really seemed to be working until the State Patrol and paramedics arrived with defibrillators. That is when he believes things took a turn for the better.

“He brought it down and they started immediately with the defibrillator on him. Which, I’m not an expert on anything, but as far as I’m concerned I think the defibrillator is what saved the man’s life,” said Boor.

The State Patrol agrees. Trooper Michael Olson hooked up the first defibrillator to the man.

He never thought he would use it, but it helped get the man’s heart started again- and he was rushed to United Hospital in St. Paul where he remains in intensive care.

“I was hoping it was gonna work. It’s always worked when we test it. This is the first time I had the opportunity to use it and see it work in the field. It did exactly what it was supposed to do,” said Trooper Olson.

The State Patrol said they were far from alone in this effort. Olson said it was a team effort with passer-by’s and other departments helping out as well, including Oakdale Fire and Rescue.

The man’s wife told WCCO she wanted to thank all the first responders, including the drivers who stopped to help her husband.

The social worker and mother of three had dropped off her two oldest children at a swim team practice about 9:30 a.m. June 29. She then headed for a rejuvenating run along a forest preserve path with her 13-month-old daughter, Tess, in a jogging stroller.

“I had passed another woman at one point, and we gave each other a nod,” McElligot recalled about a runner headed in the opposite direction.

“As I was coming back from the end of the trail at 17th Avenue, I came to a clearing, and she was stretched out in the middle of the trail. I was giving my daughter a drink, and then I thought something didn’t look right.”

McElligot said as she got closer, she realized the woman wasn’t breathing at all. A nearby resident had called 911, and another woman was helping the runner.

“She was cold and blue,” said McElligot, who immediately began performing chest compressions. “She would take gasps every once in a while, but then after a while, she was not taking gasps any more.”

McElligot started mouth-to mouth resuscitation, and soon a police officer arrived. He set up a portable automated external defibrillator and administered the first burst of power to shock the woman’s heart back to beating.

The electronic life-saving device for heart attack victims gave instructions aloud, and McElligot assisted the police officer. She soon was replaced by paramedics who arrived and took over.

“Once I stopped doing things and was just a bystander, I got really anxious,” McElligot admitted. “Once the paramedics got there, I started crying.”

“I didn’t even think about Tess that entire time, which was only about five minutes. She just sat there the whole time and didn’t make a peep. She was smiling at me.”

McElligot said she was glad to learn later that the woman, who looked to be physically fit and in her mid-40s, recovered after she was taken for emergency treatment to Loyola Medical Center.

“I was glad to be at the right place at the right time,” McElligot said.

Amityville Fire Chief Harold Miller said he arrived at John Martin’s home on Ocean Avenue on Saturday in response to a 911 call from Martin’s wife, that said her husband was having chest and jaw pain.

After Miller arrived, Martin, 59, was able to comfortably talk and provide health information to him and Assistant Chief Charles Scudlo, and to Amityville police Officer Dave Smith, as the three prepared Martin to be moved to the hospital.

But things changed suddenly, Miller said. “His eyes rolled back in his head and he fell forward.” Martin was unconscious and had no pulse, he said.

Miller said they went through the prescribed procedure of CPR and connecting a defibrillator, but in Miller’s experience, only about five out of 50 victims ever make it fully back at that point, he said.

“After shocking Martin once, his pulse came back, and color returned to his face“, Miller said.

Martin was taken to New Island Hospital in Bethpage for treatment for his heart attack, Miller said.

“He’s expected to make a full recovery,” he said Monday.