First Aid Corps

At 2:27 a.m. on Thanksgiving, T.J. Cogswell awoke to the sounds of his wife struggling to breathe.

Denise Cogswell the Survivor

“My wife is unresponsive. I just woke up…” he hurriedly told 911 Emergency Medical Dispatcher (EMD) Steve Harris of New Hampton.

After a few brief questions, Harris established that Denise Cogswell was not breathing and he immediately notified Wolfeboro Police Dispatcher Arty Alderette. Help was on its way.

Harris stayed on the phone with T.J. and the couple’s son, Derek Brockney, and provided life-saving medical instruction.

“I’m going to tell you how to help her,” Harris calmly told T.J., who had dragged his wife onto the floor as instructed and was performing chest compressions.

“I love you, come on, Denise,” T.J. shouted as he rhythmically pumped on her chest.

“Mom, stay with us,” Derek yelled.

Denise was in cardiac arrest. Within seven to eight minutes, Wolfeboro police, Wolfeboro Fire Rescue and Stewart’s Ambulance arrived on the scene to help.

Stewart’s paramedic Tom Russell recounted that his co-worker, EMT Ron Fitzgerald of North Woodstock, was first on the scene and he took over cardiopulmonary resuscitation from Cogswell. Russell, of Derry, and EMT Chris Bassett of Meredith then quickly hooked Mrs. Cogswell to a defibrillator and twice shocked her heart back into action.

By the time she arrived at nearby Huggins Hospital, the paramedics and EMTs had regained her pulse and she was breathing with the aid of oxygen. Denise was alive.

She was airlifted from Wolfeboro to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon where she remained in the intensive care unit for about a week. She was sent home with a defibrillator implanted in her chest.

Denise was unaware that she had a genetic condition that caused her heart to beat irregularly ( ventricular fibrillation ) which is a severely abnormal heart rhythm that can be life-threatening. Doctors at Dartmouth-Hitchcock told her, “You are alive today because everything was done right, from the 911 call to the care you received in the field.”

A cardiologist told Denise that, in his 20 years of practice, he has only witnessed three people who went into cardiac arrest as a result of ventricular fibrillation survive. Only two percent of patients survive sudden cardiac arrest.

On Thursday, Denise, her husband, T.J., and their two sons, Derek Brockney, 18, and Jason Brockney, 24 — both college students — visited the state’s 911 Center in Laconia to thank all the people involved in saving Cogswell’s life.

“It’s what we’re trained to do,” Harris said of the life-savings instructions he provided that fateful day, moments before getting a big hug from Denise Cogswell.

“Steve was really helpful. He told us everything to do. It was the scariest thing I ever had to go through but he stayed calm,” recounted Derek.

“There were a lot of people there who helped. They all train and work hard and many of them are volunteers,” said a grateful Mrs. Cogswell.

T.J. Cogswell used the opportunity to urge the public to take a CPR class. Denise Cogswell said that, as a licensed massage therapist, she is trained and certified in both CPR and in the use of an Automatic External Defibrillator. She urged others to get learn how to perform CPR: “You just never know when you might use it,” she said.

Colin Rasmussen, 75, has been lifting weights at the Genesis gym behind Capilano Mall five times a week for more than 25 years. “It’s like my second home down there,” he said.

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Finishing his workout close to 10 a.m. on Dec. 3, Rasmussen began to feel unwell.

Colin Rasmussen the Survivor

“I started to think maybe I overdid it,” he said. “I felt kind of weak. I went in the shower, I came out of the shower . . . blacked out, and that was it.”

He lost consciousness and fell to the floor. Gym user Craig Norris heard Rasmussen fall and alerted the front desk. The wife of an off-duty firefighter happened to be close by and ran to find her husband and his coworker who were on the exercise floor.

New Westminster firefighters Paul Nemeth and Jody Barranti, who both live on the North Shore, rushed to Rasmussen’s aid. They rolled Rasmussen over and immediately administered CPR as the call was made to 9-1-1.

“As far as Jody and I were concerned, it was a cardiac arrest,” said Nemeth. “We couldn’t find a radial pulse.”

“I had no idea who was working on me or anything, I was totally out of it,” said Rasmussen. “If they hadn’t been there I would have died. There’s no question about that.”

Nemeth and Barranti worked on Rasmussen for five minutes. Workers at the gym brought their AED (automatic external defibrillator) to the scene, but as they were about to use it, the paramedics arrived with their equipment.

After multiple rounds with the defibrillator, Rasmussen’s heart started, and he was rushed to Lion’s Gate Hospital. A stent was inserted to keep the artery open and stop further blockages.

At St. Paul’s hospital in downtown Vancouver a few days later, a personal defibrillator device was installed in Rasmussen’s chest.

“It’s amazing technology,” says Rasmussen. “This will never happen to me again with this thing in me.”

Rasmussen says he’s grateful to everyone involved, from the firefighters to the staff and patrons at the gym, and the nurses and doctors at both hospitals.

He is recuperating at home with his wife, Ingrid, and looks forward to Christmas with his family.

Calling the men “wonderful,” Rasmussen said “I’d particularly like to thank the guys that saved my life, Paul and Jody. . . . They weren’t at work or anything, they did that strictly on their own.”

Nemeth said that had Norris not been nearby to hear Rasmussen fall, the event may not have had such a happy ending “If someone wasn’t in the bathroom and heard him fall it could have been . . . who knows how long until someone found him.”

Nemeth added that it was a team effort, and praised all the people on the scene that day for their help.

While working in the yard that Saturday afternoon in late November, Mr. Tom Corey felt ill and passed out in his front yard.

Tom Korey the Survivor

His wife noticed him lying in the yard and sensed something wasn’t right. She called 9-1-1 and ran to her husband’s side.

Security Officer Belinda Armond was on duty and responded immediately. Once on scene she recognized that Mr. Korey was unconscious and not breathing. That is when her training began to run through her mind as she initiated CPR.

Ms. Armond continued to perform CPR on Mr. Korey until fire personnel Lt. Robbie Morgan, FF Chuck Grant, and FF David Zapencki from the nearby Lady’s Island St. Helena Fire Station arrived with an Automated External Defibrillator also known as an AED. Firefighters continued CPR while connecting Mr. Korey to the AED all the while maintaining circulation in his lifeless body.

Once the AED was connected and charged up the firefighters let the machine do its life saving business. The machine advised them to shock Mr. Korey’s heart and that is exactly what they did.

Soon after using the AED, and continuing CPR, the firefighters were joined by Beaufort County EMS in the form of Paramedic Michael O’Regan and Intermediate EMT Kristin Barnhardt. All six emergency personnel worked very diligently to return Mr. Korey’s heartbeat.

Once loaded in the ambulance the medical staff transported Mr. Korey to Beaufort Memorial Hospital where thanks in great part to the exceptional work by those six emergency professionals and Mr. Korey’s wife, he was able to give the doctor his own name and social security number.

“This is a rare occurrence in our profession.” states Lee Levesque, spokesman for the fire department. Often times cardiac arrest is so traumatic to the body that recovery is unlikely, so when it all works as it is designed to do, it is really something special.

In all, some thirty members of the Dataw community gathered with the emergency services personnel and were able to celebrate the holiday season with a life saved and those who saved it. So on this Christmas Eve Day, some very special holiday wishes were exchanged along with a one great big huge thank you.

A 15-year-old ice hockey player is fighting for his life after a ‘freak’ accident caused him to collapse on the ice when a puck struck him in the chest.

Tyler Symes’s heart stopped but his quick-thinking trainer, a part-time nurse, was luckily able to resuscitate the Milford High School forward on the ice.

Andy Hutson the Saviour

Jodi White has been praised by the teenager’s parents after she dashed on to the rink, reaching him in seconds, before using a portable defibrillator and administering an electric shock to save him.

Paramedics continued to perform CPR, and rushed him to Marlborough Hospital, and then to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester.

‘Jodi was outstanding,’ Robert Tremblay, superintendent at Milford High School, said.

He also praised the school’s athletic director, Rich Piergustavo, for providing annual CPR training to the athletic staff.

The incident, which happened on Monday during a game, has left Mr Symes in a critical condition.

However hopes have been raised at UMass Memorial Medical Center, as he can breathe without the use of a ventilator.

His school team were playing Nipmuc Regional High School at the New England Sports Center in Marlborough, Massachusetts.

Paul Galipeau, the teenager’s uncle, said: ‘It’s just a freak accident. It’s what they do all year long: play hockey. ‘He got hit with the puck and skated over to the bench, fell down and they administered CPR right there on the ice.

‘I don’t think [the accident] will deter him from getting back out on the ice. Only time will tell.

‘The family’s holding up. It’s a big family, we’ll pull together. Thoughts are with Tyler getting better.’

Capt. John Prentiss, a 23-year Bangor Fire Department veteran, says he hangs out with angels. Those angels are the four medically trained firefighters who worked with him on Sunday and brought him back from the dead.

“I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for those four guardian angels,” Prentiss, 55, said Wednesday while sitting in his Dedham living room. “I wouldn’t have survived. That’s for certain.”

Firefighters Melinda Caldwell, Nate Snyder, Bruce Johnson and Joe Wellman each recalled Wednesday what they experienced Sunday when Prentiss went into cardiac arrest shortly after leaving Fire Station 6 on an emergency call to the Finson Road.

Snyder was driving the fire engine with Prentiss in the front passenger seat and Johnson in the back of the cab. Caldwell and Wellman were in an ambulance behind them.

“About 1,000 feet down the street we heard a noise in the headset and it sounded like snoring,” Johnson said. “I thought the captain was messing with me because he thought I was sleeping in the back.”

Snyder also thought that Prentiss was joking with him, giving him a hard time about driving too slowly.

The snoring sound was agonal respiration, Snyder said.

“Your heart dies, but your brain wants to live so it keeps trying to breathe,” he said.

Both firefighters realized something really was wrong when a dispatcher called and Prentiss didn’t respond.

“I dove over the doghouse of the engine and he was gone,” said Johnson. “He was blue. He was just gone.”

Snyder, an 18-year veteran firefighter who has worked as a Bangor firefighter-paramedic for the last decade, immediately pulled the firetruck over to the side of Ohio Street and jumped out to flag down the ambulance and get its stretcher. Johnson opened Prentiss’ door, took off the captain’s sunglasses and headset, and unbuckled his seat belt while Wellman ran up to offer assistance. Caldwell called dispatchers to tell them Prentiss was in trouble and that another ambulance would need to be sent to Finson Road.

She then went to help. She checked Prentiss for a pulse and there wasn’t one.

“He had no signs of life,” said Wellman, who has been a firefighter-paramedic for Bangor for the last 12 years.

“We’ve all seen that look before,” Snyder said. “We know what dead looks like, and he was dead.”

Knowing that every second counts, the four started to try to revive their friend and mentor.

Johnson immediately started cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR.

“Everybody took a deep breath and we started to go,” said Johnson, a 24-year veteran firefighter and intermediate medical technician who has worked for Bangor Fire for nearly 22 years. “Everybody had a job to do and put on our serious game face. We had to step back from the emotional part of it.”

Caldwell, who has been a Bangor firefighter-paramedic for the last nine years, said her crewmates train and train for just such situations, but each heart attack is different and the fact that Prentiss was the patient raised the anxiety level.

“I was shaking putting the pads on him a little bit,” she said. “We all knew we were all feeling a million things, but we all knew we had to help each other focus.”

After two minutes of CPR, a defibrillator was used to shock Prentiss’ heart and an intraosseous access point, or IO, was put into his leg. The IO is a needle placed into the leg’s bone matter that is used to administer emergency medicines, Wellman said.

The crew then checked the captain’s heart. It was trying to work, Wellman said, so the defibrillator paddles were used a second time to get the heart beating again, and he was given 1 milligram of epinephrine, a synthetic form of adrenaline.

Then another round of CPR began. Within 30 seconds or so, Prentiss began to move and he was given a second drug, an antiarrhythmic, which is used to help keep the heart beating at a constant rate.

“It was an absolutely flawless team effort with a perfect result,” Caldwell said.

Once the firefighters got Prentiss’ heart going again, they rushed him to Eastern Maine Medical Center.

Prentiss said Wednesday that he remembers eating lunch at the fire station, which is on Odlin Road, but nothing after that until he got to the hospital.

“I remember waking up in the emergency room, and I had asked where Barby was,” he said, referring to his wife. “I remember looking up and seeing some of my co-workers and her.”

Prentiss said his family’s medical history includes genetic heart problems, but he did not have any warning about Sunday’s attack. Doctors later told him they believe a blood clot or a piece of plaque broke off and blocked his right coronary artery, the main artery that supplies blood to the heart.

Fire Chief Jeffrey Cammack said he is very proud of his medically trained firefighters.

“Early intervention makes a difference, and John is living proof of that,” he said.

A stent was placed into Prentiss’ coronary artery on Sunday afternoon by EMMC staff and two days later he was released from the hospital. Doctors have told him there is no permanent damage.

“I’ve never seen anybody recover like that,” Wellman said. “The word miracle to me is kind of a big word. John beat all the odds. It really is a miracle.”

Barby Prentiss said the miracle is that her husband works with such a great group of highly trained people.

“They’re the ones that are the miracle,” she said. “They brought him back.”

Her husband simply said, “We’re just like family.” He added that he hopes to be back at work in the next two months after going through cardiac rehabilitation and testing to ensure he’s doing all right.

“I’m ready to go,” he said. “If I could work tomorrow, I’d be back. I honestly feel that good.”

All four of Prentiss’ angels said things could have turned out differently if they weren’t all together with him when he went into cardiac arrest, or if they didn’t have the life-saving equipment readily at hand.

The four firefighters stopped by Prentiss’ house on Wednesday and got to see him with his wife, son, grandchildren, and other loving family members.

“Seeing him this morning holding his grandbabies, sitting in front of the Christmas tree, was very sobering,” Wellman said. “There wasn’t one of us who left without a tear in our eye. It felt pretty good.”