First Aid Corps

A public defibrillator helped save the life of a Hamilton man Saturday after he collapsed at a Super Saturday hockey game.

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The man, who was in his early 70s, was watching his grandson play hockey at the Chedoke Twin Pad Arena when he collapsed. Bystanders rushed to the man’s aid and used the defibrillator and CPR to revive the man’s pulse.

The man was taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital emergency room and later transferred to Hamilton General Hospital for treatment in the heart investigation unit.

Paramedics say the man’s family is extremely grateful to the bystanders, adding that he may not have lived through the experience without the defibrillator.

Peter is a Customer Care Agent at East Midlands Airport and was at work on that particular day, although not on duty as an operational First Responder, nonetheless his skills were urgently required when a male passenger collapsed in the airport terminal.

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CPR (Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation) had been commenced by a fellow passenger and a defibrillator had been brought to the scene. By this time the casualty was in cardiac arrest, which means that his heart had stopped beating, so Peter deployed the defibrillator whilst assisting with CPR.

Peter Van Der Wal the Saviour

Two shocks were given, which along with sustained CPR were successful in the casualty’s heart regaining a regular rhythm and subsequently regaining consciousness.

An ambulance crew and a doctor were very soon on the scene and all agreed that had it not been for Peter’s skill and management of the incident, together with his prompt and decisive action the casualty is unlikely to have survived.

Brooks Beler had just sat down at his desk for seventh-grade science at Huntley Project School — his last class of the day — when something in his chest seemed to flutter.

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“His teacher said he jumped twice and then fell to the floor,” recalled Brooks’ mother, Maggie Beler.

Christy Jobman knew Brooks well — she had also been his fifth-grade teacher. The moment that she noticed Brooks acting strange she initiated a string of events that saved his life.

Brooks, 13, was born with a condition called cardiomyopathy, the irregular growth of muscle tissue in the heart.

Typically, strands of heart muscle grow in the same direction, allowing the heart to beat smoothly and contract and expand properly, said James Wiggins, a pediatric cardiologist at St. Vincent Healthcare and Brooks’ doctor.

With cardiomyopathy, the strands of heart muscle grow crisscross, causing the heart to beat irregularly and grow larger than it should. Over time, the tissue becomes stiff and inflexible, he said.

On Monday in class, Brooks experienced what’s known as ventricular fibrillation, Wiggins said. The bottom chambers of his heart didn’t beat right and blood that should have been pumped out of his heart stayed put.

“He was lucky that he had the right people with the right tools at the right time in the right place,” Wiggins said. “My kudos go to the people at his school.”

Brooks had been a student at Huntley Project Elementary School since kindergarten. His mother spoke often to his teachers and school staff, making sure they knew of Brooks’ condition and what to do should something happen.

“I knew some day it would come to this,” she said.

A handful of teachers at Huntley are trained emergency medical technicians. The moment Brooks fell from his seat in science class, Jobman had called the front office asking for help.

The school secretary called 911 and Maggie Beler. She then got word to the EMT-trained teachers and they rushed to the class and began CPR on Brooks.

When he didn’t respond, the teachers knew they’d need a defibrillator — which the school had acquired a few years ago through a Rural Access to Emergency Devices Grant.

As the teachers went to get the defibrillator, the Worden Fire Department arrived carrying one of its own. They shocked Brooks twice and revived him.

“My three guys, I’m pretty proud of them,” said Worden Fire Chief Lance Taylor.

Brooks was flown to St. Vincent on the hospital’s helicopter, where he was recovering Tuesday.

“He’s functioning very well considering what happened,” Wiggins said.

On Wednesday, St. Vincent will fly Brooks to Seattle for an operation that will implant a mini-defibrillator in his chest. That will help prevent against heart beat irregularities and another attack of ventricular fibrillation.

By Tuesday afternoon, Brooks was speaking to visitors.

“I’m feeling good,” he said. “I’m feeling way better.”

In fact, weighing heaviest on his mind isn’t his upcoming heart surgery in Seattle, but all the schoolwork he’s going to have to make up.

Which makes his mom smile. Maggie Beler has perfect confidence in Huntley’s staff and its ability to help his son.

“They’re just so great,” she said.

Wiggins, a bit more somber, agreed. Their quick, calm action saved Brooks’ life.

“These people should know what they did paid off in ways you can never imagine,” he said.

Maureen Messmer was fresh on the Redmond police force when she suddenly found herself using the CPR training she’d just had.

Maureen Messmer the Saviour

What made her even more grateful that she knew what to do? The patient was her father.

On Jan. 20, just days after she graduated from the police academy, Messmer was off duty and at her parents’ Sammamish home making lunch when she heard her mother, Dana Messmer, screaming. Maureen Messmer rushed to her parents’ room to find her father, Michael Messmer, on his bed, not breathing. The 30-year-old officer called 911 and her mother went outside to flag down paramedics.

Messmer, though terrified, started chest compressions.

“I was crying the whole time,” she said. Shortly after she began performing CPR, Messmer feared her father had died.

“All the muscle tension went away in his body. I thought he was probably dead,” she said.

But Messmer continued with chest compressions, and after about five minutes, paramedics arrived and took over the effort to resuscitate Michael Messmer, 62. The responders put him in a hypothermic state while they took him to the hospital. In all, it took about an hour to resuscitate him.

Today, Michael Messmer is recovering well and plans to soon return to work at Boeing, with a new outlook on life.

Jim Whitney and David Humblad, the Redmond paramedics who arrived first on the scene, say it was Messmer’s actions that saved her father because she kept his brain alive until they arrived.

“Maureen’s efforts saved her father. She was doing incredible CPR,” Whitney said at a news conference Thursday at the Redmond Police Department.

When Messmer’s 911 call came in, the two paramedics were at the police station taking a break from teaching a CPR refresher class to police officers. At the time, they had no idea that Messmer was a police officer, they said.

“It was the first time I’ve seen a relative doing CPR successfully,” said Humblad, who has been a paramedic for eight years.

“Thanks for not giving up,” he told the paramedics. To his daughter, he said: “I’m just totally amazed that anyone had the guts to do that. To do it for your own family must have been much harder.”

Maureen Messmer, who also serves as a lieutenant in the Washington Army National Guard, says that even though the experience was frightening, she is glad to have gone through this dramatic situation at the start of her career as a police officer.

“I’m really grateful going forward in my career, to be able to understand what families experience,” she said. She advises everyone to learn or refresh their CPR knowledge and to be persistent in their efforts, even if it appears there’s no hope.

“If this happens to you, don’t give up,” she said. “Keep going until help arrives.”

Margie Hager always believed in angels, but the two burly men who saved her life look nothing like the delicate, winged creatures that grace windows and cabinets of her Wilkes-Barre home.

Margie Hager the Survivor

“I honestly believe in angels, I have a living room full of them, and a kitchen window, and God gave me two living angels,” she said.

Although Hager, 64, remembers nothing about the massive heart attack that suddenly struck her down in the parking lot of Price Chopper, Wilkes-Barre Township, on Feb. 27, she knows she is alive because of the impromptu CPR delivered by passersby Mike Romanowski and Paul Gallagher.

“It was actually a blood clot in an artery and when Mike did the first compression, I guess he actually shot it out so it didn’t explode. (The doctors) said I was actually dead.” Hager said. “I keep telling my husband that I still can’t believe I died and I’m still here.”

Romanowski, of Swoyersville, was the first to deliver CPR. On the way home from the gym, his wife asked him to pick up orange juice at Sam’s Club. Wanting Swiss cheese for a sandwich, and not wanting several pounds of it from the bulk-foods store, he stopped at Price Chopper.

“As soon as I pulled into the lot, I saw her on the ground. I parked my vehicle and I started rushing over to her. When I asked, ‘Are you OK?’ I could tell she wasn’t,” he said.

Romanowski pulled out his cell phone, called 911 to get an ambulance on the way, and with his free hand did two hard compressions on her chest.

“When she called me, I was just overwhelmed by the call. She said her doctors said the first couple compressions, that’s what saved her life,” he said. “Just that initial jolt of doing a compression brought it back.”

Gallagher, a vendor with Kellog’s Snacks, walked out of the store after stocking the shelves and saw Romanowski on the phone. He immediately dropped to his knees and took over compressions.

“I really saw that no one else was doing anything. Mike was on the phone, which was the right thing to do,” Gallagher, of Dallas, said. “I did chest compressions for about 90 seconds when she took a few ragged breaths. Someone behind me said once she starts breathing you have to stop CPR. I did, and she stopped breathing.”

He immediately resumed CPR and kept going until the ambulance arrived and a medic knelt to the ground and placed his hands where Gallagher’s were. With zero formal CRP training, Gallagher guesses he must have learned how to administer it through a public service announcement or a TV show. A retired foreman, Romanowski had been trained, but only ever performed chest pumps on a dummy.

Hager was whisked to Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center in Plains Township, where she remained until Wednesday recovering. Until she woke up hours later, she did not know what happened.

Trying to be lighthearted about what could have been fatal, she joked it was a good thing her “angels” weren’t wimps.

“(The doctors) told me I’m very lucky I don’t know what they did to me. I guess between the CPR and the paddles, it was brutal,” she said.

Through Wilkes-Barre Township police, Hager found Romanowski, who had given his name and number to police, and Gallagher, who drove to the hospital after the rescue to check on Hager and had left his information with medics.

Gallagher saved the message he received from Hager on Wednesday, when she told him, “You’re my angel and you saved my life.”

The three gathered Saturday at Hager’s home for the first time since the nearly tragic heart attack. She gave them each a Willow Tree angel figurine and a card, and made them promise to come to a party once it gets warm outside.

“These two men, and I honestly believe God sent them there, and I owe them everything,” she said. “And I have four children, seven grandchildren and they all feel the same way.”