First Aid Corps

When Sahara Labadie, 12, woke her brother, Tucker Labadie, 13, around 1:30 a.m. on June 27, she had some devastating news to deliver.

“She was shaking me and saying, ‘Daddy’s dead,’” Tucker said. “At first, I thought she was messing with me.”

Their mom, Jen Labadie, had gone upstairs to bed 30 minutes earlier. William Labadie — just call him Bill — was already in bed. But something was very wrong.

“I think he was mad about the cat, because he said something about it, and then his head flopped into the pillow face first,” Jen said of her husband. “Then he made the most horrible gurgling noise I’ve ever heard. I picked his head up, and he was gone. The doctor said he was dead before he hit the pillow.”

Bill, 39, had gone into ventricular fibrillation — essentially blood is not removed from the heart and it’s usually fatal.

Jen quickly dialed 911, and stayed on the phone while performing CPR before paramedics arrived. “My panic buttons were completely out of control,” she said.

Sullivan Fire Chief Neil A. Henry was one of the first responders on the scene.

“He essentially had no pulse,” Henry said. “It would come back and then go away again … I wasn’t expecting a good outcome.”

Jen could tell that time and hope were running out. “At one point, Al looked at me with the most pity anyone’s ever looked at me with,” she said.

After working on Bill for more than 30 minutes in the Labadies’ bedroom, paramedics put him in the ambulance for the trip to Cheshire Medical Center/Dartmouth-Hitchcock Keene.

“When I saw the ambulance pull out of the driveway with the lights going but no siren, and they weren’t going fast, I knew it was bad,” Jen said.

Tucker, his son, couldn’t believe what was happening. “It was like looking down on a dream from the top of a glass (ceiling),” he said.

All Jen could think of was that she didn’t want Bill to die outside the hospital, which would have prevented them from donating his organs.

“I couldn’t bear the thought of a world where his beautiful blue eyes weren’t around,” she said, fighting back tears.

Paramedics attempted to revive Bill with electrical shocks three times at the home and twice more en route to the hospital.

It seemed like a lost cause. And then it happened.

After being shocked for the fifth time, Bill suddenly regained consciousness, nearly an hour and 20 minutes after being considered medically dead.

“He came back with a vengeance,” Jen said. “He started ripping things out of him.”

Hospital staff immediately called for the rolling hospital unit, which transported Bill from Keene to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon.

But questions still lingered over whether Bill suffered irreparable brain damage during the ordeal, Jen said. “We didn’t know if he’d ever be the same again,” she said. “He was hooked up to everything you could think of.”

Ten days later Bill returned home, his brain fully functional and his body on the mend. On Saturday he walked a little, watched some TV, sat on the outdoor deck and the family grilled shish kabobs.

“It’ll be six to eight weeks before he can be active, and he can’t drive for six months because of the defibrillator in his chest,” Jen said of Bill, who works as a bridge builder for Cold River Bridges.

Bill said doctors told him they can’t explain how he recovered after being considered clinically dead for nearly an hour and a half.

“They don’t know, they just say it’s a miracle that I’m here,” said Bill, who celebrated his 39th birthday June 30 while in the hospital. “She (Jen) did good, keeping me alive.”

“They don’t see people come back from this,” Jen said. “People don’t survive this.”

According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, the survival rate for ventricular fibrillations occurring outside of a hospital is between 2 and 25 percent.

“There’s no way to explain how he’s still here,” Jen said. “He’s the strongest, most determined human being I’ve ever met, which is why I married him.”

Bill’s longtime friend and coworker, James Hollar, spoke of his strong will. “He’s a fighter, and he never gives up,” Hollar said. “There’s not too many people who can come back from where he was … maybe nobody.”

Henry, who’s been a firefighter since 1974, said he’s never seen or heard of anything like it.

“Of all the calls like this I’ve been on, that’s the longest I’ve seen anybody go that came back,” he said. “It was remarkable, and it’s a good feeling.”

Jen Labadie, who suffers from insomnia, is amazed at how many things went right for her at just the right moment.

“If I hadn’t been ready to go to bed yet, I would’ve had no idea (that Bill had suffered an attack),” she said. “Or if I’d taken my (sleeping) medication a few minutes earlier, I would’ve been out.

“I do believe in a divine power,” she said. “But I don’t know why certain people get miracles and some don’t.”

Diane Crawford was sound asleep in her Widgeon Lane home in the Mount Misery neighborhood after flying back home that evening from a trip to Disney World, when she was awakened at about 1:40 a.m. by her husband William’s “terrible, erratic breathing,” she said Tuesday morning from Stony Brook University Medical Center, where her husband is now recovering.

“I screamed out, ‘Daddy’s dying!’” she recalled, explaining that the exclamation was intended to get the attention of her 27-year-old son, Daniel, who was upstairs.

Ms. Crawford, 58, wasted no time, however.

A registered nurse at Southampton Hospital and former Sag Harbor Volunteer Ambulance Corps member, she immediately started administering CPR—at first on the bed, but then, because the surface was too soft, she and her son moved the 6-foot-tall, 220-pound, Mr. Crawford, 67, to the floor. Her son had called 911.

Meanwhile, Daniel Crawford’s friend, Justin Dent, 27, who had been watching TV with the younger Mr. Crawford, ran outside to ensure that police found the right house, Ms. Crawford said.

When Southampton Town Police Officers Bartholomew Carey and Edward Henderson arrived, within minutes of the call, they found Ms. Crawford performing “quality CPR,” according to a police statement. They then took over the CPR and used an Automated External Defibrillator, AED, to help revive Mr. Crawford, a landscaper, who, according to his wife, had not had any previous heart problems.

“I want these two officers to get the recognition they deserve, to show that their training worked, because had they not come to my house with their defibrillator in the trunk of their car, my husband would be dead. It’s as simple as that,” Ms. Crawford said. “These two men, they’re my heroes.

“You’re dead within minutes of having a cardiac arrest,” continued Ms. Crawford, who actually teaches CPR to new parents at the hospital.

She also credited the Sag Harbor ambulance crew members who, along with the police, provided three “shocks” to her husband. They administered advanced life support and took him to Southampton Hospital. In the ambulance, he returned to consciousness to everyone’s delight, she said.

The couple were able to celebrate their wedding anniversary together on Sunday. Ms. Crawford said her husband joked that his incident got him out of having to get her a present, while she told him his present to her was surviving.

All Southampton Town Police officers are trained in CPR and defibrillator use, according to Police Chief William Wilson Jr.

“The two officers, as well as the Sag Harbor ambulance, just did a spectacular job, as did the family members that had initiated the CPR before their arrival,” he said. “I think it just goes to prove that early intervention and taking steps to initiate CPR saves lives. I’m very proud of the officers. I’m very happy for the family that the gentleman is still with us.”

As of Tuesday, Mr. Crawford was still at Stony Brook, where he had been transferred for further cardiac care.

“My husband’s plumbing is good, but his electricity is not,” his wife quipped. “We just want to continue on to a very happy ending.”

65-year-old Ray Lecomber had been in the garden of the cottage at Kilgetty when he went inside for a break and fell asleep in a chair.

Ray Lecomber the Survivor

His wife, Brenda, was unable to wake him and was concerned at the strange snoring noises he was making.

She called an ambulance crew and Tenby Ambulance Station paramedics Mark Rice and Nick Tebbutt answered Brenda’s call, along with second-year paramedic degree student Keri Morgan.

Nick, a paramedic for 19 years, said he had never dealt with a patient quite like Ray before.

He said: “Ray was sat in the chair unable to understand what all the fuss was about. He was a little pale but everything else was fine.

“We asked if he’d let Keri examine him, which he agreed to, and Keri undertook base line observations including a respiratory and circulatory assessments as well as checking his blood glucose and temperature.

“In fact everything was within normal limits for Ray’s age and after conducting an ECG test, which also proved normal, we decided this was a false alarm although Brenda had been right to call us.”

But Mark, a paramedic for eight years, says there was a sudden change.

He said: “We were talking to the family and getting a bit of health history from Brenda when Keri noticed an abnormal rhythm on the defib screen. She thought one of the leads had come adrift as it seemed so strange but they were all still attached.

“It soon developed into what is called Torsades de Pointes, which is a rare ventricular arrhythmia (abnormal muscle contractions in the heart) although Ray was still talking to us.

“The arrhythmia developed into unconsciousness and Ray arrested.

“We quickly gave him a precordial thump and Nick started CPR. Keri managed his airway and I attached the defib pads and shocked him.

“Ray came to and asked why he was on the floor. We told him he hadn’t been well and we were taking him to hospital.”

But on the way to Withybush Hospital Ray stopped talking and his breathing decreased.

He was again shocked back to life and, amazingly, carried on a conversation where he’d left it as if nothing had happened.

The same thing happened five more times before the ambulance arrived at the hospital.

And over the next 24 hours, doctors had to shock Ray twice more as his heart stopped again.

Nick said: “Both Mark and I felt really concerned as we have never known someone survive after being shocked so many times. We really did fear the worst for him”.

Mr Lecomber said: “I fell asleep in a chair which is highly unusual for me. Apparently Brenda couldn’t wake me and as I was apparently making some strange noises she called an ambulance. Thank God she did.

“It turned out I had narrowing of two of my main arteries and I was having real problems. Apparently they had to shock me nine times although I don’t remember anything about it.”

And Mr Lecomber, father of David, is keen to sing the praises of the ambulance crew and NHS staff who treated him.

He said: “I won’t have anything bad said about any of them. From the call handler who took Brenda’s call to paramedics who treated me at home and apparently shocked me back to life and the hospital staff at both hospitals where I was treated, they are all dedicated and marvellous professionals”.

Mrs Lecomber, who has been married to Ray for 43 years, said: “Without their expertise Ray never would have made it.

“All the NHS staff were marvellous from start to finish and I have nothing but praise and respect for the work that they do.”

Ray added: “It was a real shock in more ways than one to be honest. I suppose it’s all about lifestyle. I have never been a smoker despite the consultant asking me more than once if I did smoke. I do like my food and enjoy all the things you are perhaps warned about like real butter, cream and stuff like that.

“I have been given a second chance and believe me, I’m not about to waste it.”

Capt. John Prentiss, a 23-year Bangor Fire Department veteran, says he hangs out with angels. Those angels are the four medically trained firefighters who worked with him on Sunday and brought him back from the dead.

“I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for those four guardian angels,” Prentiss, 55, said Wednesday while sitting in his Dedham living room. “I wouldn’t have survived. That’s for certain.”

Firefighters Melinda Caldwell, Nate Snyder, Bruce Johnson and Joe Wellman each recalled Wednesday what they experienced Sunday when Prentiss went into cardiac arrest shortly after leaving Fire Station 6 on an emergency call to the Finson Road.

Snyder was driving the fire engine with Prentiss in the front passenger seat and Johnson in the back of the cab. Caldwell and Wellman were in an ambulance behind them.

“About 1,000 feet down the street we heard a noise in the headset and it sounded like snoring,” Johnson said. “I thought the captain was messing with me because he thought I was sleeping in the back.”

Snyder also thought that Prentiss was joking with him, giving him a hard time about driving too slowly.

The snoring sound was agonal respiration, Snyder said.

“Your heart dies, but your brain wants to live so it keeps trying to breathe,” he said.

Both firefighters realized something really was wrong when a dispatcher called and Prentiss didn’t respond.

“I dove over the doghouse of the engine and he was gone,” said Johnson. “He was blue. He was just gone.”

Snyder, an 18-year veteran firefighter who has worked as a Bangor firefighter-paramedic for the last decade, immediately pulled the firetruck over to the side of Ohio Street and jumped out to flag down the ambulance and get its stretcher. Johnson opened Prentiss’ door, took off the captain’s sunglasses and headset, and unbuckled his seat belt while Wellman ran up to offer assistance. Caldwell called dispatchers to tell them Prentiss was in trouble and that another ambulance would need to be sent to Finson Road.

She then went to help. She checked Prentiss for a pulse and there wasn’t one.

“He had no signs of life,” said Wellman, who has been a firefighter-paramedic for Bangor for the last 12 years.

“We’ve all seen that look before,” Snyder said. “We know what dead looks like, and he was dead.”

Knowing that every second counts, the four started to try to revive their friend and mentor.

Johnson immediately started cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR.

“Everybody took a deep breath and we started to go,” said Johnson, a 24-year veteran firefighter and intermediate medical technician who has worked for Bangor Fire for nearly 22 years. “Everybody had a job to do and put on our serious game face. We had to step back from the emotional part of it.”

Caldwell, who has been a Bangor firefighter-paramedic for the last nine years, said her crewmates train and train for just such situations, but each heart attack is different and the fact that Prentiss was the patient raised the anxiety level.

“I was shaking putting the pads on him a little bit,” she said. “We all knew we were all feeling a million things, but we all knew we had to help each other focus.”

After two minutes of CPR, a defibrillator was used to shock Prentiss’ heart and an intraosseous access point, or IO, was put into his leg. The IO is a needle placed into the leg’s bone matter that is used to administer emergency medicines, Wellman said.

The crew then checked the captain’s heart. It was trying to work, Wellman said, so the defibrillator paddles were used a second time to get the heart beating again, and he was given 1 milligram of epinephrine, a synthetic form of adrenaline.

Then another round of CPR began. Within 30 seconds or so, Prentiss began to move and he was given a second drug, an antiarrhythmic, which is used to help keep the heart beating at a constant rate.

“It was an absolutely flawless team effort with a perfect result,” Caldwell said.

Once the firefighters got Prentiss’ heart going again, they rushed him to Eastern Maine Medical Center.

Prentiss said Wednesday that he remembers eating lunch at the fire station, which is on Odlin Road, but nothing after that until he got to the hospital.

“I remember waking up in the emergency room, and I had asked where Barby was,” he said, referring to his wife. “I remember looking up and seeing some of my co-workers and her.”

Prentiss said his family’s medical history includes genetic heart problems, but he did not have any warning about Sunday’s attack. Doctors later told him they believe a blood clot or a piece of plaque broke off and blocked his right coronary artery, the main artery that supplies blood to the heart.

Fire Chief Jeffrey Cammack said he is very proud of his medically trained firefighters.

“Early intervention makes a difference, and John is living proof of that,” he said.

A stent was placed into Prentiss’ coronary artery on Sunday afternoon by EMMC staff and two days later he was released from the hospital. Doctors have told him there is no permanent damage.

“I’ve never seen anybody recover like that,” Wellman said. “The word miracle to me is kind of a big word. John beat all the odds. It really is a miracle.”

Barby Prentiss said the miracle is that her husband works with such a great group of highly trained people.

“They’re the ones that are the miracle,” she said. “They brought him back.”

Her husband simply said, “We’re just like family.” He added that he hopes to be back at work in the next two months after going through cardiac rehabilitation and testing to ensure he’s doing all right.

“I’m ready to go,” he said. “If I could work tomorrow, I’d be back. I honestly feel that good.”

All four of Prentiss’ angels said things could have turned out differently if they weren’t all together with him when he went into cardiac arrest, or if they didn’t have the life-saving equipment readily at hand.

The four firefighters stopped by Prentiss’ house on Wednesday and got to see him with his wife, son, grandchildren, and other loving family members.

“Seeing him this morning holding his grandbabies, sitting in front of the Christmas tree, was very sobering,” Wellman said. “There wasn’t one of us who left without a tear in our eye. It felt pretty good.”

Allan Bealing and Caroline Marshall, from Wellington Free Ambulance, were waiting in a queue at Burger King in Courtenay Place about 2am on August 1 when Mr Ilton, who was across the road, suddenly collapsed.

Josh Ilton the Survivor

Recognising something was seriously wrong when Mr Ilton collapsed, his friend put him in the recovery position and dialled 111. Onlookers rushed over the street to get the paramedics, who quickly identified the signs of cardiac arrest.

“Josh had agonal respirations, [irregular breathing], sounding a bit like loud gasping or snoring,” Mr Bealing said.

Because of a large number of intoxicated bystanders, the paramedics transferred Mr Ilton to the back of an ambulance and began performing CPR and shocked him with a defibrillator to try to restart his heart.

A second Wellington Free Ambulance paramedic crew arrived to take him to Wellington Hospital, with Mr Bealing, Ms Marshall and a paramedic student continuing to perform CPR on the way.

Tests have shown no reason for his heart attack but he is scheduled to have an operation today to implant a defibrillator near his heart. “I was really lucky the paramedics worked on me so hard and were in the right place at the right time,” Mr Ilton said.

His mother, Nelma Pearce, was very grateful the paramedics recognised immediately that her son had not just fallen over drunk.

“The fact they were just across the road when Josh collapsed was a massive stroke of luck.”

Mr Bealing said that more often than not a patient did not survive this type of medical emergency.

“He primarily survived because CPR was started so soon after he collapsed and a defibrillator was nearby to deliver the shock that reverted the heart into its normal rhythm.

“Without these key factors he would have been unlikely to survive …”