First Aid Corps

Ian Owen, 50, from Bucknell, used a defibrillator on Mandy Edwards, 47, when she collapsed at home in April.

Ian Owen the Survivor & Mandy Edwards the Survivor

He was trained in using the equipment and had been given a defibrillator to look after as part of a community life saving skills scheme.

He said: “It was a funny situation to be in – this was the first time I had to put my training into action.”

“I gave CPR and administered two shocks using the defibrillator then put her into the recovery position,” Mr Owen added.

“If the Clun Valley Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) scheme hadn’t started, Mandy wouldn’t be here.”

Under the scheme, nine defibrillators have been put in remote villages and communities in the Clun Valley area of Shropshire, and 80 volunteers have been trained to use them.

Ms Edwards said: “I don’t remember anything [but] later found out that on the day I had done some housework and was on the phone to my cousin when I said I felt faint.”

Her cousin called Mr Owen who went round to his sister’s house before Gaye Edwards, a community first responder from Leintwardine in Herefordshire, arrived to help.

Ms Edwards was flown to Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and spent four days in intensive care at Hereford County Hospital before being transferred to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham.

Mr Owen said: “It was luck that there had been a training session the day before, it was luck that I had been given the defib to look after, it was luck that Mandy’s cousin was on the phone to her when she collapsed.

“At the end of the day I did what I was trained to do.”

He had a massive heart attack in the middle of a hockey game. But Stephen Spiros, 59, was revived thanks to an automated external defibrillator or AED and some teammates who knew how to use it.

View First Aid Corps World Map of AED Locations in a larger map

NewsChannel Five’s Ann Rubin was there as Spiros was reunited with the people who saved his life.

The incident happened Monday at the Kirkwood Ice Rink.

Goalie Stephen Spiros was playing well, Little did he know someone else would have the best “save” of the night.

Spiros says, “I was having a good game and the next thing I know, I don’t know anything.”

Spiros had suffered a massive heart attack. But as he lay motionless, others took action.

First Craig Merrifield from the opposing team, ran for the AED. His own father had died from a heart attack, so he knew every moment mattered.

He says, “I know it at every rink, I know exactly where it is. I know which rinks have them, which rinks don’t.”

The Kirkwood rink has an AED. And thankfully, Spiro’s teammate Don Guenther knew how to use it.

He had recently been trained on the device through his church.

Guenther says, “I held my finger there and somebody said push the darn button and I boom pushed the button.”

It took two shocks, but by the time paramedics arrived, Spiros’s heart was beating.

They say that AED made all the difference.

Guenther says, “The paramedics told us that if we wouldn’t have responded so quickly, that we wouldn’t still have a goalie on our team.”

Jaguar’s coach Brian Robinson says, “If Steve had been anywhere else, had he been at the store, the theater, the outcome would have been very different.”

He spent nearly a week recovering at Des Peres Hospital.

And one of his first acts upon his release Sunday, thanking the men who saved his life.

He’ll wear a portable defibrillator for now. But doctors say his prognosis is good.

So is his outlook.

He says, “God wasn’t finished with me yet. So this was the first day of the rest of my life.”

Doctors told Spiros no hockey for at least 90 days. In the meantime, he’ll be cheering his teammates on, and talking up the importance of knowing how to use that AED.

When it comes to saving lives, there’s no such thing as “off-duty.”

View First Aid Corps World Map of AED Locations in a larger map

Paramedic Bruce Binda saved his teammate’s life when the man suffered a heart attack while playing hockey at a local arena around 11 a.m. Saturday.

“He collapsed on his hands and knees,” said Binda, who has been an emergency worker for 21 years but wasn’t on duty Saturday. “I thought he was injured.”

Still on the ice, Binda immediately began CPR and used the public Automated External Defibrillator, shocking the 41-year-old man three times.

Binda’s colleagues arrived and took over, transporting the man to hospital, where he’s conscious and speaking.

Paramedic Supt. Steven Leu said Binda is “one of the guys who, ironically, took the day off.”

The men were playing a regular-season game, said Binda, adding his friend of 10 years is married with two children.

“I’m pretty happy with the result,” said Binda.

A local gym attendant is being hailed as a hero for helping to resuscitate an unconscious man who had a heart attack Tuesday while working out on a treadmill.

View First Aid Corps World Map of AED Locations in a larger map

Planet Fitness employee Whitni Hendley, 22, of York Beach, Maine, said it was around 6:45 a.m. when a gym patron came running over to the front desk, screaming for her to call 911.

Whitni Hendley the Saviour

The stricken man, a 65-year-old from Rye, was working out at the Lafayette Road location and had gone into cardiac arrest. He was not breathing and had no pulse.

Hendley said she handed off the phone to the panicked patron and put some of the training she learned while attending paramedic school to the test.

What happened next was a blur, said Hendley, but ultimately saved the man’s life.

After running to the back corner of the gym and finding the man on the ground, Hendley said she checked for his pulse, but found nothing. Hendley said she then grabbed an automated external defibrillator and prepared it to deliver a shock.

“People were freaking out,” she said. “I tried to calm everyone down and take care of the guy.”

When the defibrillator read “shocking advised,” Hendley said the seriousness of the situation became more apparent.

“I said, ‘Oh man, this is real now,’” she said. “I made sure everyone was clear, and after he was shocked, I went right into CPR for two minutes. I then reanalyzed him and he had a pulse.”

Another gym patron reportedly assisted Hendley in giving the unknown man CPR.

Having performed a variety of similar training exercises while in paramedic school in Jacksonville, Fla., Hendley said she never before had to use her training.

“It was the first time I had ever done it. It was just me,” she said. “It was pretty exciting.”

Word of Hendley’s life-saving actions has spread throughout the gym community. The news also attracted the attention of city officials, who said that, without her actions, the outcome would’ve been much different.

“This is as real as it gets,” said Assistant Fire Chief Steve Achilles, who visited Hendley at the gym Wednesday.

Achilles said he wanted to meet Hendley to say thank you and congratulate her on her life-saving efforts.

“This is the stuff you read in success stories,” he said.

The assistant fire chief lauded Hendley for having someone else call 911 and for jumping into action. He said the chances of a person surviving a heart attack without CPR or an electric shock is about 10 percent.

“The fact that, after she used the AED and continued to do CPR for a few minutes, he had a pulse is amazing,” Achilles said. “That’s what it’s all about.”

Achilles said paramedics arrived less than five minutes after the 911 call was made. By that time, the man was breathing.

“To go from someone who is clinically dead to someone that is alive is just simply amazing,” he said.

Having an AED in the facility is vitally important and is something Achilles said the fire department is hoping to spread throughout the many businesses in the city. He said having one in the gym facility shows Planet Fitness’ commitment to the health and safety of its members.

“We’re very pleased with the fact that Planet Fitness has trained people and has an AED on site,” Achilles said.

For Hendley, the fact that she just saved a man’s life had yet to set in Wednesday.

“I’m more nervous now than I was yesterday,” she said. “Yesterday, I had about two seconds to get down there, and it was game time. I really didn’t have time for the adrenaline to start pumping.”

A man’s life was saved in Saskatoon thanks to an automated external defibrillator on-site at a local hockey rink.

View First Aid Corps World Map of AED Locations in a larger map

According to MD Ambulance, paramedics responded Sunday around 11:20 a.m. to the Agri-Twins Arena, where a 58-year-old man collapsed while playing hockey. The staff at the arena called 911 and then, with the help of a licensed practical nurse who happened to be in the building, defibrillated the man.

When paramedics arrived, the 58 year old was breathing on his own. He was taken by ambulance to Royal University Hospital in stable condition.

“This was a complete team effort and a perfect example of how the chain of survival in cardiac arrests works,” said MD Ambulance spokesperson Troy Davies in a statement.

“From the players recognizing the patient in cardiac arrest, calling 911, MD Ambulance dispatchers talking them through CPR, the rink staff grabbing the AED and shocking the patient, and finally paramedics stabilizing the patient en route to hospital – if one of those links drops, this patient would not have survived.”