First Aid Corps

Virgil Bramblett had just arrived at Hickman High School on Nov. 17 to help repair the school stage. For four hours that morning, the Columbia Public Schools carpenter had felt an uneasy pain in his chest. Muscles near his heart were sore, he thought.

Virgil Bramblett the Survivor

So he walked to the school nurse’s office — on the northeast side of Hickman — a five-minute walk from the school’s main office, where the automatic external defibrillator, or AED, rests.

At about 7:15 a.m. that day, the school’s licensed practical nurse, Cara Baker, had just arrived at work. She led Bramblett to a cot in the nurse’s office. Bramblett asked her to take his blood pressure because of chest pains.

After the blood-pressure reading, Bramblett popped up from the cot, ready to go to work. On his feet, though, he felt dizzy. Seconds later, he was on the cot again, unconscious. Evans and Baker moved him to the floor and began CPR, and Evans shouted at Lisa Chalupny, the office secretary, to call 911.

Do you need the AED?” Chalupny asked, referring to the defibrillator.

“Yes!” Evans replied.

Assistant Principal Tracey Conrad was standing near a stairway in the Hickman Commons when she heard home-school communicator Talisha Payne’s voice on the walkie-talkie asking for the AED.

Conrad sprinted toward the box on the wall containing the defibrillator. School office worker Theodore Hanfelder already had the machine and handed it to Conrad, who dashed to the nurses’ office.

When Conrad reached the office, Evans grabbed the AED as Baker continued CPR.

The AED showed Bramblett’s heartbeat was irregular and that he was having his fifth heart attack. The machine advised Evans to send an electrical shock into him. She pushed the button.

After the AED shock in the nurse’s office, Bramblett seemed to stabilize. The nurses said he even spoke to them.

“I’m so sorry,” he told them. “Thank you so much.”

Evans told him emergency crews were coming. “Oh, I gotta get back to work,” the nurses said he told them.

Bramblett was released from the hospital Nov. 19 and advised to not work for at least a month.

Brenda Bramblett remains anxious about her husband’s health. “It’s just really scary when he leaves the house every day,” she said.

A woman jogging alone through a quiet tree-lined neighborhood collapses, face-first, onto the ground.

Seeing the woman face-down in the grass, Blantz pulled a U-turn, jumped out of his car, found her unresponsive, called 911, rolled her on her back and began CPR.

Another jogger had stopped to help while Blantz was on the phone with emergency dispatchers. Blantz handed him the phone and began CPR.

He continued chest compressions as medics arrived less than a minute later and took over respiration.

The EMTs then used an automated external defibrillator to start the woman’s pulse again.

The jogger was taken to the hospital, where she remained unconscious — and unidentified — until Tuesday, when she awoke and was able to provide police with her mother’s name.

“I want her family to know,” Blantz said, “that individuals were there, that a complete stranger is willing to jump in and help at a moment’s notice and not expect anything from anybody.”

“I feel I did my duty in helping another citizen,” Blantz said.

We are looking for badge designs to identify 3 kinds of heroes :

1. Seeker

A seeker is someone who is actively on the lookout for AEDs ( automated external defibrillators ) in public places and in places of work to update us; or someone who in an actual event, seeks out the nearest AED and bring it back to the location of the victim. Do not need to be trained in CPR or in the use of the AED.

2. Pumper

A pumper is someone who does chest compressions on the victim.

3. Shocker

A shocker is someone who activates the AED and deliver shocks to the victim when advised to by the AED.

Brett Flanagan and Kendra Hicok, a restaurant manager and server at The Grill at Quail Creek, were honored at a Green Valley Fire District board meeting for saving the life of a World War II veteran who had a heart attack in the restaurant in October.

Flanagan says his co-worker, who was first on the scene, assessed the situation and determined that the man’s heart had stopped.

They used an Automated External Defibrillator (AED), which administers an electric shock, to revive the victim, who is now recovering.

GVFD’s administrative chief Katie Sayre said many businesses and churches in Green Valley are equipped with AEDs.

In late August, Lawless and some of his family members decided to take his birthday gift — a new boat — to Bowen’s Creek, near Philpott Lake. First, they stopped at a nearby store for fuel.

Allen Lawless the Survivor

He continued to participate in the family outing, boating for a couple hours while eating pizza and other snacks, before heading back to the boat ramp with his wife, Barbara Lawless; daughter; son-in-law; and grandchildren.

Confronted with mechanical problems, Lawless’ son-in-law asked him to get some tools from Lawless’ truck. There, he got pliers, an adjustable wrench and a screwdriver from the tool box.

“I got about halfway back down to the boat” when he fell face-first onto the ground, said Lawless, of Ridgeway.

“My son-in-law tried to resuscitate me,” he said, but those efforts were futile as the family started asking for help.

Two park rangers, Curtis Brooks and Jordan Moore, were among the first to respond, according to Craig “Rocky” Rockwell, operations manager at Philpott Lake.

They found Lawless shaking “as if having a seizure. He had no pulse and was not breathing,” Rockwell said.

Brooks called to Semones, who radioed 911 for help. Then Brooks and Schlueter “started administering life-sustaining CPR” while Moore made sure Lawless’ head was positioned correctly, Rockwell said.

“It was 15 minutes before Bassett Rescue Squad got to me,” Lawless said.

Lawless said he was told he had “turned completely black in the face and had no heartbeat” when the rescue squad arrived.

A defibrillator was used to “shock me,” Lawless said. “They got me on the gurney and were ready to leave the parking lot when I stopped breathing again,” Lawless said he was told.

The defibrillator was used two more times before he was airlifted from Memorial Hospital in Martinsville to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, Lawless said he has been told.

“It’s just by the grace of God that I’m here to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving,” Lawless said. “I thank God, my wife and sisters” and all who continued praying “I’d pull through. They never gave up on me.”

The retired longshoreman, 85-year-old Bill Trujillo, strapped on his helmet and set out on a route he’d traveled many times.

John Heinrich the Saviour with Bill Trujillo the Survivor

There, his memory of that day stops. It picks up 20 days later, when he regained consciousness in a hospital and was told he’d suffered a heart attack, fallen off his bicycle and ultimately underwent six-way bypass surgery.

On Aug. 24, Heinrich was off-duty and traveling with his wife to Wal-Mart to buy supplies for the high school class he helps teach.

They were at the intersection of Elm Street and Mills Avenue when they saw Trujillo lying in the street, tangled in a bicycle about a block south.

They detoured and drove to the man, where Heinrich jumped out of the vehicle.

A bystander was about to move Trujillo out of the roadway, but the firefighter said to wait, in case the man had spinal injuries.

“I checked for a pulse, and he didn’t have one,” Heinrich said.

It all happened very quickly, Heinrich said, but instinct and training kicked in instantly.

He started CPR while using his cell phone to call for help. Fellow on-duty firefighters arrived with a defibrillator and used it twice before Trujillo’s heart started beating again.

“Really, all I did was keep him alive until they got here with the defibrillator,” Heinrich said.

An ambulance soon arrived and took Trujillo to Lodi Memorial Hospital. He was then transferred to Mercy Hospital in Sacramento.

Mike Trujillo noted that Heinrich’s training saved his father’s life, allowing the family to celebrate Thanksgiving today.

“He acted not only as a fireman but as a citizen,” he said. “We should probably all learn CPR.”

Sandra Houghton, a member of CUPE 905, was working her usual night shift on Monday, November 16 at Georgina Civic Centre when the town’s deputy clerk rushed out of a committee of adjustment meeting to ask if she knew how to use the defibrillator, or AED, located on site.

“I went into the council chambers and assessed the situation,” said Houghton, who had been trained to use the device just over a year ago. “Some members of council and of the public were trying to assist a gentleman in distress.”

Houghton opened the AED case and got to work.

By the time York Region paramedics arrived, she had revived the man – and saved his life.

“I want to let everybody know, to tell employers, that it is so important to get this training and to have the AED in the workplace or other public sites,” Houghton says. “It would make the world a better place.”

Houghton’s union agrees.

“We encourage our members to take this kind of training when it is offered to them,” said Derek Bakshi, president of CUPE 905. “Public employees are the people who are on site on a regular basis, who know what equipment is available and how to use it.”

Half an hour into a tennis set Tuesday morning, Nov. 3, Ray Schami,72 , began to lean over, bracing his hands on his thighs, then fell to the ground.

Ray Schami (center) the Survivor

“He was gasping,” said Ron Kydd, 67. “And [his breathing] wasn’t regular. It was sort of one big gasp and then something and then nothing. Nothing.”

John Stevenson, 72, dashed for his phone and called 9-1-1, and he and Kydd rolled Schami onto his back and started doing CPR, trading off between them.

Kydd said that he’d done his training a few years ago and was able to remember the counting for the breaths and chest compressions. And Stevenson says that as a fitness instructor and personal trainer, he has done CPR training pretty regularly over the last decade or so.

“After a few minutes, when it was obvious that Ray’s pulse was weak if it was present at all — it was so hard to tell, because we’re panicking — I went out to the car while John continued the CPR, and I got the defibrillator that my wife and I carry in the car,” Kydd said. “We carry it because we live in Roberts Creek and it’s 15 minutes from an ambulance, if you’re lucky.”

“The first thing it says is, ‘Be calm.’ Well, no chance of that,” Kydd said wryly. “And then it tells you to check the airways and the various steps you’re supposed to do, including attaching the pads to the person’s chest, which I did. And then it analyzes. It says, ‘Analyzing, analyzing.’ And then it said, ‘Shock recommended,’ and ‘Stand back.’ And so at that time I pushed the button and gave the shock.”

Kydd administered two separate shocks, between rounds of CPR, and then paramedics and firefighters arrived and continued working on Schami.

Paramedics took Schami to St. Mary’s Hospital until he could be transferred by helicopter to St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, where he was put in a medically-induced coma for 24 hours. He had a defibrillator implanted and was released from hospital Saturday, Nov. 14.

Now, he says, he’s still feeling weak, but is counting his blessings that his heart attack happened in the right place, near the right people.

“I live alone so I could have been alone and had this heart attack and have been found a week or so later by neighbours,” he said. “[My children] would have been concerned [when they hadn’t heard from me as usual] and my neighbours would have walked in to find me dead.”

Judy Mims still doesn’t recall what happened on Nov. 16, 2008, but she was on her way to Sunday school where she teaches at First Baptist Church on Mills Avenue.

Judy Mims the Survivor

Brown and her twin sister, Shirley Hackett, think that Mims stopped at Target on Kettleman Lane to get some cold medicine because she wasn’t feeling well.

She was in the restroom when she collapsed, Brown said. A customer, also in the restroom, heard a crashing noise, left the restroom and told an employee, who called 9-1-1.

AMR paramedics revived Mims with a defibrillator before taking her to Lodi Memorial Hospital. Doctors thought she wouldn’t make it through the night. Before the night was over, she was transferred to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Stockton.

“I have no memory at all of what happened,” Mims said. “I don’t know why I went to Target.”

“I realized I was at St. Joseph’s, but I didn’t realize the magnitude of how serious it was,” Mims said.

It was a long stage of rehabilitation, with both of Mims’ sisters staying with her for seven months.

One recent exciting day for Mims was July 28, when she returned to her classroom, where she teaches a fifth-grade Gifted and Talented Education class.

Mims said she has a class of good students who don’t cause her much stress, but she makes an extra effort to not subject herself to stress.

Joseph Tarrant, who has served in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, suffered a heart attack at the start of the Remembrance Day service in Surrey outside Epsom Town Hall.

Joseph Tarrant the Survivor

Among those who came to his aid on 11 November was Maureen Paterson, an off-duty emergency nurse practitioner from Epsom Hospital’s accident and emergency unit.

“When I saw Joseph collapse, another lady and I immediately went to help him,” she said.

“I could feel he didn’t have a heartbeat so I started cardiac massage, which is where you place the palm of your hand over the person’s heart and try to get it beating rhythmically again by pumping their chest.”

Marion Kuit, a receptionist from nearby Glyn Technology School in Ewell, also came to the aid of Mr Tarrant and started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, while a police officer ran to fetch a defibrillator.

Mrs Paterson said: “In that kind of situation you focus so intently on what you’re trained to do, but I was aware the service was continuing - we were in the middle of the two minutes’ silence and I tried to be as quiet as I could.”

He was taken to Epsom General Hospital where he is now recovering on the specialist coronary care unit.

Mr Tarrant said: “I just want to thank both ladies from the bottom of, well, from the bottom of my heart. I’m only here today because of them.”