First Aid Corps

The coach of a Warminster youth basketball team suffered a heart attack in the last two minutes of a Warminster Basketball Association game at William Tennent High School Sunday afternoon.

Warminster Fire Chief Mitch Shapiro, whose son was playing in the game, and two parents who are nurses, rushed onto the court and used an automated external defibrillator to revive the coach, a man in his early 60s.

The fire chief said he has used the AED to revive people in the past, “but it is a lot different when you know the person.”

Shapiro said the coach was taken to Abington Memorial Hospital where he was undergoing tests Sunday night.

On April 11, Lori Duchow, a pediatric nurse at Riverview Hospital in Wisconsin Rapids, was watching an adult basketball game during a tournament at Nekoosa High School with her two daughters when she saw a man collapse on the court.

Duchow rushed to his side, told people surrounding him she was a nurse and instructed them to call 911.

The man was breathing and had a pulse, but when Duchow checked a few minutes later, she could no longer feel the beat of his pulse.

She instructed someone to find an automatic external defibrillator, a device trained people can use to shock the heart back into action.

While she waited for the machine, Duchow started cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the unconscious man.

When someone brought the automated external defibrillator, Duchow used it and then continued CPR.

“The machine tells you what to do,” she said.

Duchow said while she worked on the man, she continued thinking she didn’t want him to die in front of 150 people, including children, in the gymnasium.

While she assisted the man, referees from the game worked to get the children into an adjoining room.

The man’s heart started beating again. When he awoke, he didn’t know what happened, Lori said. He wanted to get back up and start playing. Lori insisted he go to the hospital with the ambulance.

The next time Duchow saw the man in church, he and his wife thanked her for saving his life. The man gave Duchow a big hug.

“I cried,” she said.

Drew Brantley, 17, a school soccer and baseball star, was playing basketball with classmates last week when he collapsed and appeared to have a seizure.

Drew Brantley the Survivor

But nurse Brenda Strunk said she quickly realized it was much more severe.

“When we got to him, we were trying to find pulse on him. We couldn’t find a pulse,” she said.

Strunk grabbed an Automated External Defibrillator located outside the school’s gym and used it to bring the boy back from full cardiac arrest.

Brantley spent five days in Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, where doctors said he had a heart condition that had gone undetected.

Now he is back home and thanking the people, and the machine, that helped save his life.

“I couldn’t tell you where one of (the AEDs) is in the school, although I guess I will now,” he said. “I’m just so happy that everybody knew how to use it, and everybody got there on time.”

“Only because of that device and the people at school is our son still alive” said Ron Brantley. “Make sure you get them. Even if you don’t have to use them, it’s a security blanket.”

Michael Crane, 26, was at Novato High School gym in November and getting ready to play a playoff adult league basketball game.

Michael Crane the Saviour

Forrest Manning’s team had just lost and he had just sat down in a chair.

About 20 seconds into Crane’s game, Manning fell out of the chair and his teammates called out for help.

Crane is a graduate student at Arizona State University and is finishing his thesis for a degree in fire department administration.

He finished an 18-month internship with the Napa Fire Department in early 2008 and is trained as an emergency medical technician.

Crane gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and chest compressions until Novato paramedics arrived.

Manning received shocks from a defibrillator and was taken to a hospital.

He is recovering from having two stents installed in previously blocked arteries.

With some help, Manning tracked down Crane, who recently moved to San Francisco, to thank him. “It’s strange because how can you really thank somebody completely who saved your life?” Manning said. “I’m sure he knows how much it meant.”

Crane said he got goosebumps when Manning called. “I was taken aback by it all,” he said. “I think everybody who was there that night has seen the impact of knowing CPR. Hopefully people will take the steps to learn it so they have the ability to save a life.”

An emotional night Tuesday for the folks over at Parkview High School in Little Rock.

Sophomore Chris Winston collapsed during the game with Searcy.

Winston, #22, stopped breathing and they had to use a defibrillator to bring him back.

Winston was taken to the hospital where he began breathing on his own.

Early indications are he suffered a seizure, but Coach Al Flanigan says they’ll move Winston to Arkansas Children’s Hospital Wednesday to run more tests.

On Oct. 5, the Knights were about 15 minutes into a routine practice at Crestwood Baptist Church when 17-year-old Josh Howard fell to the floor.

OKC Knight coach Randy Graham, had his back to Howard at the time but was quickly by Josh’s side.

“I picked up his head and thought he was having a seizure,” Graham said. “His jaw was just clinched tight, and his arms were locked up near his chest.”

Graham worked to give Howard breaths while 911 was called. Most of Howard’s Knights teammates were on the floor almost immediately after Howard went down, praying for their fallen teammate.

Paramedics were at Howard’s side in less than 10 minutes.

Twice before leaving the gym, Howard received shocks from a defibrillator. He had to be shocked another time when he got to the hospital.

First, he was taken to St. Anthony’s. Doctors there determined the damage to his heart was too severe for them to treat, so once he was stabilized, he was moved to Children’s Hospital.

For three days, Howard remained in a coma. Graham walked into the hospital room at about 7:30 a.m. that morning. “Hey, Coach,” Howard said as he rolled over. If nothing else, Howard was awake and alert.

“There’s no other word to describe it other than grateful,” Graham said. “I’m so thankful, and I know that Jack and Debbie Howard, his parents, are as well.”

“On Oct. 5, I was hoping he would live. I had no hope that he would live. He was blue. I couldn’t even have dreamed of him being where he is right now. We call him our miracle.”

Drake Williams, 16, was doing offense-to-defense transition drills with the rest of the Wharton High basketball team Saturday when he pitched forward near mid court.

Drake Williams the Survivor

Drake tried to get up once, then collapsed in a heap.

By the time Wharton coach Tommy Tonelli got to the junior forward’s side, Drake’s eyes had rolled back and he wasn’t breathing.

Tonelli said he started chest compressions, tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and switched back to chest compressions. It wasn’t working, so he asked junior Jonathan Torres to take over the CPR while he went to get the gym’s automatic external defibrillator.

Meanwhile, a teammate used Tonelli’s cell phone to call 911 and to try to call Drake’s parents, Darrell and Monzita Williams of New Tampa. Others dashed out of the gym in search of another coach.

In the parking lot, they found Tampa Fire Rescue paramedic Ryan Bradford and firefighter-paramedic Angelo Santos Martinez. They had just come to Wharton High to pick up fire Capt. Rick Chesser, who had dropped off an equipment truck for Badge Bowl VIII, a charity flag football game that would pit Tampa firefighters against police later that day.

They walked in as Tonelli prepared to use the automatic defibrillator. Drake was pale, had no pulse and wasn’t breathing. His limbs were limp, and his pupils didn’t react.

Within a minute, however, the paramedics had shocked Drake’s heart back to life. On the way to the hospital, he talked to rescuers.

“He wanted to get back up and go play basketball,” firefighter-emergency medical technician Frank Coto Jr. said.

By Tuesday, Drake welcomed the rescuers who saved his life during a visit in the hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit.

“I’m so happy to see that smiling face,” driver-engineer Mark Wengyn told Drake.

“I’m glad to be back,” Drake said. “Thank you for all that you did.”

The 14-year-old male student was in full cardiac arrest on the basketball court in the Blanche Ely High School gymnasium when someone called 911, said fire rescue spokeswoman Sandra King.

Joseph Saintelus the Survivor

“I was playing basketball with my friends and all of sudden, I didn’t see, I don’t see anything. I have like a blackout,” said Joseph Saintelus.

An assistant coach was performing CPR while the caller told a dispatcher what was happening at the school, 1201 NW Sixth Ave.

“Mr. Brown actually called 911, and he started with the chest compressions, and I started with the breaths and we were implementing the CPR and Joseph started to breath again,” said Nurse Sheila O’Neil-Brown

When paramedics arrived, they took over with a defibrillator and were able to start the boy’s heart again, said King.

He was conscious when he was taken to Broward General Medical Center.

“Clearly there were some tense moments on that basketball court,” she said, crediting the assistant coach and a school nurse who assisted with saving the boy’s life.

Joseph’s mother is grateful for everyone who jumped into action to save her son.

“If they wasn’t there, then I may not have my son today, and I thank God for them and them laying their hands and the extra strength to keep pushing, and to get him back with a heart beat,” said Corleitha Henley.

On Oct. 15, Terry Smith was put to the test when Pearlman, a 6-foot junior center from Chicago, collapsed after running sprints following the first day of practice, lost consciousness and went into cardiac arrest.

Liz Pearlman (left) the Survivor

The 38-year-old Smith, who has been head trainer at Aurora University for six years, was routinely monitoring the women’s basketball practice as he had many times before.

“I was on one side of the court and Liz was on the other,” he said. “Like a lot of the players she was bent over, breathing hard, and then she went down. I walked over and started to say, ‘OK, Liz, let’s get up. As I got to her she was having trouble breathing and it spiraled out of control.”

He knew what to do, telling an assistant coach to call 911 and instructing coach Michelle Roof to get the automated external defibrillator in the lobby of Thornton Gymnasium while he started CPR compressions on the player.

Roof sprinted back with the device and took over those compressions as Smith started to hook it up.

It shocked Pearlman twice, who later started bleeding from her nose and mouth, likely due to blood clots in her lungs that weren’t diagnosed until two days later.

An assistant coach had the players clear the gym, paramedics arrived and Pearlman was taken to an ambulance, which remained in the parking lot at least 20 minutes before she was stabilized and ready to be transported.

Her parents, notified by assistant trainer Nicki Pieart, were on their way to Aurora.

“It was very scary,” Richard Pearlman said. “We’re dealing with rush-hour traffic and the rain. We were in terror in our car because you don’t know if she’s alive or dead. There was a 25- to 30-minute window where we didn’t know.”

Later that night in the intensive care unit, Liz awoke to find she had been intubated with a breathing tube.

“She signed, ‘I love you’ with her hand,” said her dad, “and it was the first time I knew that her brain was OK.”

“For years you say, ‘Thank God, I never had to use it,’” Smith said of his skills in cardiopulmonary resuscitation. He’s taught CPR classes many times. “As I tell my classes, ‘You learn it and it seems monotonous, but there’s a reason for it.’”

“When I saw (Liz) at the hospital Friday, it was a big relief; she was definitely looking better,” he said. “And then when I went back Saturday, it was one of the happiest days of my life. She looked good and was able to talk to me.”

Three weeks ago, while running on the court, 18-year-old Tierra Rogers felt her heart speed up, then careen out of control. She tried to sit down but sagged before she reached the bench.

Tierra Rogers the Survivor

It lasted only a few moments, so Tierra figured it was probably nothing. After all, she had suffered from asthma since she was 14 and took Advair to mitigate it. She’d had a couple of similar episodes before, and had once called home to complain to her mom that “my heart hurts.” So this wasn’t that out of the ordinary.

Then, 30 minutes later, outside the training room, it happened again. Only this time Rogers wobbled and keeled over, toppling into the arms of Cal women’s basketball trainer Ann Caslin.

“She wasn’t breathing and she was unconscious,” remembers Caslin. Fortunately, the episode didn’t occur on a playground, and Caslin was able to grab an Automatic External Defibrillator from the gym hallway and use it on Tierra.

An ambulance arrived within minutes and took Tierra to nearby Alta Bates hospital for observation.

After being transferred to UC San Francisco Medical Center, she was diagnosed with Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia, which can cause abnormal electrical rhythms in the heart and is one of the most common causes of sudden cardiac death in young athletes. So on Oct. 1 doctors implanted a defibrillator in her chest.

Rogers says she hasn’t quite processed it yet. After all, you can’t give up something you love just like that and forget about it. Hence her presence at practices, and in those black hightops. Rather than run away from the game, she might well cling to it tighter for a while.