For a while, Dec. 15 was like any other day for Robbin Goods.
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The violence-prevention educator with the nonprofit Community for New Direction was working with students at Ohio Avenue Elementary School on the city’s East Side. Then her heart stopped.
Robbin Goods the Survivor and Tamara Harris the Saviour
“They said I was laughing, and I sort of just keeled over,” Goods said recently.
She was told that a nurse grabbed the school’s automatic external defibrillator — a device that delivers an electrical shock to stabilize heart rhythm — and attached it to Goods’ chest.
“After it shocked me the first time, I sort of came to,” she said.
Goods, 35, was taken to Grant Medical Center and was kept under observation for a week. She said doctors weren’t sure why she went into cardiac arrest but told her the school’s defibrillator kept her alive.
In Upper Arlington, where dozens of the devices have been placed in schools and city buildings, training is now part of monthly CPR classes.
“Most communities could probably benefit from it,” said Chris Moore, the training and EMS lieutenant for the Upper Arlington Fire Department.
Sayre compares the defibrillators to fire extinguishers and said the value of the equipment is appreciated only when something bad happens.
“The number (of AEDs) is increasing, but it’s still far too low,” he said.
