First Aid Corps

Two officers with the Newton Falls police department are credited with using their Automated External Defibrillator to revive an unresponsive and non-breathing 59 year old man Saturday morning.

According to a press release issued by the department, Detective Andy Harvey and Officer Tony Vella responded to a call on Warren Ave. shortly after 6 a.m. and deployed the AED on the man.

Following the instructions of the AED, the two men “shocked” the patient and began CPR. By the time the ambulance arrived a few minutes later, the patient was conscious and breathing.

The Newton Falls Joint Rescue Squad transported the patient to the hospital. His condition is not known at this time.

Dave Carlstrom, a former Fairbanks airport marketing director and minister, had just finished playing racquetball at a gym in Seattle when his heart stopped in early December. They say he was dead.

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And he would have been, except the people around him knew just what to do — they gave him CPR and hooked him up to an automatic external defibrillator.

“You never think it will happen to you,” said Carlstrom, who turned 62 the next day. “I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for the quick-thinking staff and members at the gym who were able to apply CPR and activate the AED within three minutes of the incident.”

It happened at the L.A. Fitness center in Ballard. After Carlstrom and his racquetball partner, Leo Muller, sat down after their game, Carlstrom felt ill.

I was “sitting down on the bench, as is our usual custom to catch a breath, putting away the gear, and suddenly feeling a profound sense of unwellness,” Carlstrom told the TV station.

Then he slid to the floor, his face turning purple.

Flight attendant Page Huletz was working out and saw what happened. As part of her airline work, she receives periodic training on CPR and the use of external defibrillators.

As the employees of the health club rushed to perform CPR on Dave, Huletz reached for the electronic device.

“Right away we shocked him, his body comes up off the floor, and then the shock is absorbed and he took his first breath, and that was a miracle right there,” Huletz.

Dave was in the hospital for five days and is back at home. The story says he was “banned” from the racquetball courts until January.

He appeared on the TV story with the flight attendant who saved him and he also posed for pictures with the fire department personnel, who arrived in less than four minutes, and the health club workers.

“There’s been enormous mercy and grace in my life,” Dave said.

I asked Dave by email what it felt like when his heart stopped. He repeated the comment about the mercy and grace that has come his way and said:

“As for what it was like … after keeling over (quick, painless … great way to exit this mortal stage, albeit with a few loose ends for successors and assigns) I only saw darkness, i.e., no beckoning tunnel of light, etc.,” he said.

“I asked our pastor if I should be concerned. She thought a moment and inquired, ‘What was the temperature?’ No flames, so the matter was deemed theologically inconclusive … could be going either way.”

Two local community center employees who were honored Thursday for saving the life of a Sioux Falls man with a defibrillator said they were simply doing their job.

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Trey Bren and Kelsey Remund, both part-time community center recreation leaders, were working at Morningside Community Center on Dec. 4 when they spotted Vance Magee, a 21-year-old Sioux Falls resident, who had fallen to the floor at mid-court while playing basketball.

Kelsey Remund & Trey Bren the Saviours

Magee was experiencing a cardiac arrest.

After he got back on his feet and was able to be taken off the court, he started seizing.

The pair acted quickly, calling 911 and using the public access defibrillator and CPR to save the unresponsive Magee’s life.

All Parks and Recreation employees receive CPR training, officials said Thursday at the ceremony honoring the pair, and that training was a large factor in Bren and Remund’s quick response, they said.

“We’ve always done the training with the CPR and everything, and never once did I think I’d actually have to use it,” Remund said. “The training helped a lot.

Bren and Remund were given plaques Thursday in recognition of their fast action, clear thinking and ability to take action.

Vance remembers little of that day, only waking up in the hospital, where he spent six days. Now, he said he feels good and is excited to get back to work.

“I’m just glad to be here right now, it’s kind of hard to realize what I’ve been through,” Magee said. “I just want to say thank you to everybody, thank you.”

Bren and Remund say they were glad they could do their job and help save a life.

“Vance, I don’t want you or your family to think that you owe us anything; we were simply doing our job,” Bren said.

Sioux Falls Mayor Mike Huether said he was proud of the pair.

“Four words: Vance is with us,” said Huether said. “I’m just so proud. I get to do so many great things as mayor, and this is just another one. You two young people , look at the impact you’ve already made.Your moms are proud of you, your dads are proud of you, I’m proud of you, the city is proud of you. Nice job.”

Calvin Haynes went home Tuesday for Christmas.

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Haynes, 15, of Natchitoches nearly died on Dec. 12 during Natchitoches Central’s freshman boys basketball game at Pineville High School. On Tuesday, a day after having a defibrillator surgically placed in his chest in New Orleans, Haynes and his mother, Clara, went home for the first time since the terrifying incident.

Calvin Haynes the Survivor

“I wasn’t at the game, but I was blessed with angels that worked with my son that got him back to life,” said Mrs. Haynes. “His heart had stopped beating for eight minutes, and he was unconscious for 30-40 minutes. Some people say he is lucky to be alive. He wasn’t lucky, he was blessed.”

Haynes, a small forward, wasn’t a starter in the contest, but he remembers being sent into the game in the second quarter.

“I don’t remember going down,” he said. “I remember scoring a basket and going back (down court) to play defense. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the hospital.”

Micah Coleman, in his sixth year as the varsity boys’ basketball coach at Natchitoches Central, was watching from the sideline while freshman coach Kolton Sepulvado’s Chiefs played the Rebel freshmen. As Coleman was visiting with Pineville varsity boys’ basketball coach Corey Simon, Haynes made a nice move to the goal for a layup off the glass.

“I was talking with Corey about Calvin after he caught Corey’s eye with that score,” Coleman said, “and pointing at him as he was running down floor and then collapsed. You see kids fall all the time in basketball, but you could tell there was something different about the way he fell. To say it scared me would be an understatement. I was terrified.”

“It was a dead sound,” said Gage Trahan, a certified athletic trainer and Pineville teacher who was on duty at the game and administered to Haynes on the court. “Initially, it looked as though he was having a seizure. He was very rigid and shaking.”

Donna Lemoine, a nurse from Rapides Regional Medical Center who happened to be at the game because her daughter was scheduled to play in a freshman girls basketball game after the boys contest, soon joined Trahan on the court to help.

Despite the appearances, Haynes wasn’t having a seizure, Lemoine said, noting he wasn’t breathing and didn’t have a pulse.

“We did several minutes of CPR,” said Lemoine, a former paramedic and emergency room nurse who taught CPR for 20 years and now is director of the trauma department at Rapides Regional. “At one point, it seemed he started breathing again, but it was not a good pulse.”

Trahan got Simon to call an ambulance and the Pineville Fire Department, and he hustled to get an automated external defibrillator (AED) that was by the school cafeteria near the gym.

“That’s what the patient needed,” said Lemoine, who had also been doing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on Haynes. “Gage turned it on and started analyzing the heart rhythm, and it advised he needed to be shocked. We shocked the patient and started doing CPR again.”

By the time the ambulance and Pineville firefighters arrived, Haynes was stable enough to be transported to the emergency room.

“When I got to the hospital, Calvin was conscious and recognized my voice,” said Mrs. Haynes, who arrived at the ER about 15 minutes after her son. “He was in and out (of consciousness).”

Haynes eventually was taken to the intensive care unit.

“I felt drowsy and didn’t know what was going on,” he said. “The only thing that kept me calm was hearing my mom and my coach telling me everything was OK.”

“I’ve prayed pretty hard in my lifetime, but never with quite the same energy than when I was on the way to the hospital,” said the 34-year-old Coleman. “Once I heard his voice, that was the best definition of relief I’ve ever experienced. His words were kind of slow and slurred, but I didn’t care as long as he was talking.

“To see someone go from being a happy-go-lucky 15-year-old to someone hanging on for life, that’s how fragile life can be,” Coleman went on. “We prayed several times and told him we were praying for him and that, no matter what, it was going to be OK. We told him we weren’t going anywhere and he was not alone.”

“Thanks to Gage and Donna Lemoine,” said Pineville Principal Karl Carpenter, “we have a 15-year-old male who will celebrate Christmas with his family as opposed to being in a tragic situation.”

Haynes was sent last week from Rapides to Children’s Hospital in New Orleans for tests.

“They did several tests, but didn’t find anything wrong,” said Mrs. Haynes, whose husband, Calvin Sr., a former Alcorn State offensive lineman and Mississippi junior high basketball coach, died in 1997 at age 45 of a heart attack.

“They put a defibrillator in Monday to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Mrs. Haynes continued, “and since everything went well with that, we can go home.”

Mrs. Haynes said because of her husband’s death, she sent her son to a doctor for a physical last August, noting he was “cleared to play football and all sports.”

Coleman said he didn’t leave Haynes’ side the night he suffered from cardiac arrhythmia until both his mother and the doctor told him he would be OK, after which he returned home to Natchitoches and “promptly hugged my kids.”

“The next morning,” Coleman said, “he called me and said, ‘Coach, I wanted to check on you, are you OK?’ That’s the kind of kid he is. With all that he’d been through, he was calling to check on me. I kind of laughed and said, ‘Yeah, Calvin, I’m OK as long as you’re OK.’”

“I just feel blessed,” said Haynes. “I’m thankful there were people at the game who knew CPR and could help me. I’m happy that their school had (an AED) that shocked my heart. If they hadn’t, no telling what would’ve happened.”

And he’s had plenty of time to think about that.

“I’ve thought about how I am lucky to live and have a second chance,” he said. “Instead of taking life for granted, I will appreciate each day from now on.”

Shortly before noon Friday, Jeremy was running around at the edge of campus with friends. They were on their lunch break. Suddenly, the 15-year-old collapsed.

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Keegan Shepherd and Sheldon Liikala, two juniors who saw the teen sink to the ground, immediately ran to a nearby school building, said Principal Tim Praino. They knew they would find a breakroom full of teachers.

Mike Edwards the Saviour

Two of the teachers, John Bittinger and Paul Staley, who recently trained to provide first aid and CPR, rushed outside while others called 911 and radioed for one of the new defibrillators.

Praino was sprinting to the gym to get a
defibrillator, until he heard that Edwards already was en route with the machine from his office.

Edwards recently had gone through training on the defibrillator, but didn’t feel too sure of himself when he got the radio call.

Jeremy Brewer the Survivor

“My first thought was, ‘I don’t remember what they told me in the training,’ ” Edwards told the Herald Monday.But when he got to where Bittinger and Staley were performing CPR on Jeremy, he went on auto-pilot — quite literally.

The machine told Edwards it was getting ready to shock Jeremy and to not touch the teen.” The defibrillator checked if Jeremy needed a second jolt and when it decided he didn’t, told the humans to resume CPR, even letting out beeps to show them exactly at what pace to apply pressure to the chest.

Less than two minutes had passed since Jeremy collapsed — and that’s essential to avoid lasting damage.”

In the next couple of minutes, an ambulance showed up.The medics asked if the defibrillator shocked the teen and took over. They took Jeremy to Kadlec Regional Medical Center, where doctors found his heart was beating fine, but that he was not yet breathing on his own. He was flown to Seattle Children’s Hospital and was breathing on his own by Saturday.

On Monday, Jeremy was talking but appeared confused, Praino said. Doctors have said it will take the teen a few days to form clear thoughts, but that he is expected to fully recover.They also said Jeremy was “lucky to have trained individuals working on him within minutes,” Praino said.

Bittinger and Staley forced air into his lungs. Edwards had the machine to jump start Jeremy’s heart. And two students didn’t hesitate a moment to get help.”It was a great example of teamwork,” Praino said.

Just how great became apparent to Edwards only Monday — when he saw the report doctors downloaded from the defibrillator.The graph showing Jeremy’s heart activity was an almost flat, squiggly line when Edwards first attached the pads to the teen’s chest. Ten seconds after the shock was delivered, the usual sharp spikes seen on the heart rate diagram indicated his heart had started beating again.

“I got goosebumps seeing that,” Edwards said. “I thought, ‘Man — this works.’

“When the district’s safety committee discussed buying defibrillators over the summer, nobody objected, but the general consensus was that they likely would never be needed, Gribskov said.

But before the year was out, one of the relatively inexpensive machines has saved a young man from permanent damage or even death.

“We’re certainly thankful we decided to purchase them,” Gribskov said.