First Aid Corps

A 31-year-old Sydney man who had a heart attack and died for more than five minutes after running a half marathon at the weekend says he is lucky to have collapsed near paramedics.

Jamie Donaldson the Survivor

Jamie Donaldson made it to the finish line of the Sydney Running Festival at the Opera House after running 21km yesterday before collapsing.

“I had the good fortune of collapsing at the finish line — if it had of been somewhere else I probably wouldn’t be around at all,” he told Nine News.

Startling video shows paramedics working desperately to bring the father-of-two back to life with a defibrillator.

On the third attempt, his heart started pumping again.

Mr Donaldson is fit and healthy, and this was the third long distance run he had taken part in this year.

But on this occasion he had underestimated the impacts of heat and dehydration.

“It sounds to me like I was bordering on the end,” he said.

“I’ve been told I was dead for six minutes.”

A race for one high school athlete turned into a fight for life.

Sam Shafer & Bob Wright the Saviours

A 17-year-old Decorah cross country runner collapsed Thursday evening while running in the Rich Engel Cross Country Classic at Birdsall Park in Cedar Falls. A spectator at the event, Dr. Greg Hoekstra, administered CPR until Cedar Falls police officer Sam Shafer and reserve officer Bob Wright arrived on the scene. The officers had an automated external defibrillator and administered a shock to jump-start the teen’s heart.

He was taken to Sartori Memorial Hospital.

Sartori personnel called the on-scene response a “textbook save” and noted that CPR alone most likely would not have saved the teen’s life.

Adam Riley, activities director for Decorah High School, said the student is doing well but was still in Cedar Falls for testing as of Friday afternoon.

“We’re very appreciative of the efforts of the Cedar Falls Police Department and Sartori hospital,” Riley said Friday. “We very easily could have lost a student yesterday.”

Cedar Falls police have been carrying the defibrillators in each squad car for about eight years. Each officer is recertified to use the device each year.

“Frequently, we’re on the scene before ambulances and paramedics, so you have to do what you can,” said Police Chief Jeff Olson. “We’re just thrilled when we can do something like this to help.”

Last Wednesday, Ali Askari was dead for about 15-minutes.

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“As I’m sitting here talking to you, I really shouldn’t be,” said Askari, soccer player.

Askari, 51, was playing with his adult soccer team in Balch Springs when his heart stopped.

“All of a sudden I felt dizzy,” Askari recalled. “I felt my knee gave up. And I was just getting closer to the ground. But I didn’t feel the hitting. I remember that I wanted to keep going but I couldn’t.”

Surveillance video from Premier Park in Balch Springs showed the fuzzy mob of team-mates gathering around his fallen body on the soccer field.

Two doctors on the team started CPR.

It was a player on the other team who offered a life-saving assist..

“And I yelled out to them,” said Chris LeBlanc, who played for the Balch Springs team, “Hey do you need the defibrillator?

Surveillance video captures LeBlanc running to the complex building, retrieving the AED, and handing it off to one of Askari’s teammates.

Unlike UIL sanctioned youth events, automated external defibrillators or AED’s are not required for recreational or adult sports leagues.

The ‘Over 40′ aged players at Premier Park in Balch Springs insisted on having an AED handy.

“The majority of our players are older,” says Larry Hall, president of Premier Park. “And they requested that we have a difib here just in case. It’s one of those things where you hope you never need to use, but you hope you have it just in case you do.”

“The first attempt I hear did not work,” says Askari. “Nothing happened. Second attempt, I came back.”

Two days later, Askari had a defibrillator implanted surgically.

While he may never be cleared to play soccer again, he’s expected to recover fully.

He was given a signed game ball signed by members of both teams who witnessed his collapse.

Ali Askari believes the only reason he avoided an unexpected and ultimate red card is because there were two doctors and an AED at the game.

John Porter at the NewPage Duluth paper mill said a few thank-yous to some co-workers Tuesday.

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Nothing big, they just saved his life is all.

Porter, 55, was at work in the mill’s control room July 6 when he suffered a sudden cardiac arrest. He doesn’t remember the heart attack, but he remembers waking up in the hospital and being told that his co-workers had saved his life using their training and an automatic external defibrillator.

“I’ll never look at these guys the same way again,” Porter said.

The saviours included Tiffany Johnson, Nevada Torrence, Cathy Baker, Steve Blank, Tim Morris, Steve Ratte, Lonnie Simonson, Richard Swanson, Bryan Blazejak, Jay Pederson and Matt King.

A middle-aged man who collapsed during a basketball game at the Hyde Community Center in Newton last week was revived thanks to an automatic defibrillator that had been installed there through the efforts of a local doctor.

According to a police report, the man was standing on the sideline drinking a bottle of water when he suddenly collapsed.

Two friends who also participated in the adult basketball league immediately began performing CPR on the man, Newton police spokesman Bruce Apotheker said. One, Celtics strength and conditioning coach Bryan Doo, grabbed the automated external defibrillator (AED), a simple-to-use machine that is designed for bystanders and bridges the critical moments between the beginning of cardiac arrhythmia and the arrival of paramedics.

Doo connected the AED, which detected an arrhythmia and applied one shock to the man. By the time police arrived just before 10 p.m. last Wednesday night, the man had a pulse.

A spokesman for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where the man was transported, said he was in stable condition. The man, reached in his room, did not wish to release his name but was responsive.

Credit is now being given not just to the man’s friends who applied CPR, but also to a nearby doctor whose successful lobbying for the AED’s installation proved life-saving.

Dr. Matthew Shuster, a geriatrician with Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, lives just across a field from the Hyde Community Center. He said he has frequented the various basketball leagues that rent the court on weeknights for years.

After friend Stu Williams passed away in 2001 while playing basketball in a Newton league, Shuster pressed for various athletic venues in town to install AED machines.

“It took three or four years,” Shuster said, “but we decided after that we had to have the machine, to honor his memory and use it if necessary.”

A machine was donated to the Hyde (as it’s called by regulars) in 2005, and Shuster assumed the responsibility of maintaining the machine, periodically updating its software, checking the pads, changing the batteries and running diagnostic tests.

That diligent maintenance paid off in a big way last week.

“We feel really great that we were able to help save somebody’s life,” Shuster said, also crediting Doo, who was trained on the use of AEDs.

Shuster said that while the machines are not magic bullets, they are a vital tool in managing heart attacks, where every passing second means an increased risk of permanent brain damage or death.