First Aid Corps

Teacher Sean King had just popped into the gym to grab a practice defibrillator for the class he was teaching on first aid at Silverthorn Collegiate when he spotted teacher Sharon McConnell cradling a Grade 12 basketball player whose heart had abruptly stopped.

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Suddenly, while his Grade 9 students practiced CPR on “dummies” in the gym next door, King joined McConnell in a life-or-death first-aid drill. In the precious minutes that followed, they used a real defibrillator and CPR to restore the teen’s pulse before emergency crews arrived.

Today the 17-year-old is recovering, although he does not want his name made public.

“The timing was ironic, because I had just been telling my students how important it is to know CPR, especially with the holidays coming up when they visit with elderly relatives,” King said.

McConnell knows first aid from her days as a lifeguard, and began delivering CPR and mouth-to-mouth as shocked students watched. She had been teaching at the Etobicoke school less than two weeks, yet ironically, one of the first classes she had taught was in CPR.

“It’s amazing because the defibrillator tells you exactly what to do, including what rhythm to use when you compress the chest and when to give air,” McConnell said.

Toronto’s Emergency Medical Services has nominated both teachers as well as hall monitor Linda Armstrong and vice-principal Tim Brethour for EMS Citizens’ awards for quick thinking in fetching the defibrillator, calling 911 and delaying the bell between classes so emergency crews could wheel out the stretcher without having to battle crowds.

“In cardiac arrest, seconds count,” noted EMS acting superintendent Shawn Murphy in a letter of praise to school officials. “Had it not been for the rapid and skilled actions of the staff, the outcome would not have been as positive.”

Jamie Alls was playing a weekly game of pick-up basketball with his friends at South Shore School last Tuesday when he started to feel some pain in his chest. At first, he left the gym and sat in the hallway. But one of his friends, Stacy Hilliard, told him to sit inside the gym.

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Moments later, Alls told his friends to call 911.

“Then I laid back and I looked at the ceiling and I was out,” Alls said.

He was in cardiac arrest.

Rob McCann, one of his friends, started chest compressions, something he had not done in years.

“I remember yelling to the guys, ‘Does anybody know how to do this better?’” McCann said.

Alls was quickly fading.

“I actually looked at his face. It was bluish-gray,” said John Santos. “I thought, we may not be able to get him back.”

Then Santos, an employee at South Shore School, remembered that the school recently installed a defibrillator down the hall.

“That’s when it hit me, we’ve got one of those things that’ll fix him,” Santos said. “So I ran and got it.”

The device started talking to the men, giving them instructions before shocking Alls and getting his heart started.

“His color came back right away,” Hilliard said.

Alls remembers hearing the defibrillator’s voice as he woke up.

“I was like, ‘What was that sound?’” he said. “And while I was conscious, it zapped me another time.”

Paramedics arrived moments later and rushed Alls to the hospital. He underwent angioplasty and is expected to make a full recovery.

Seattle Public Schools installed defibrillators in every school, administrative building and at all 15 outside sports fields at the beginning of the school year. The district collaborated with the Heart of Seattle Schools, a non-profit organization that includes the Seattle Seahawks, Sounders, hospitals and Nick of Time Foundation.

“It saved my life,” Alls said. “I’m here to tell you that was saved by that and I just cannot be more grateful for that.”

A middle-aged man who collapsed during a basketball game at the Hyde Community Center in Newton last week was revived thanks to an automatic defibrillator that had been installed there through the efforts of a local doctor.

According to a police report, the man was standing on the sideline drinking a bottle of water when he suddenly collapsed.

Two friends who also participated in the adult basketball league immediately began performing CPR on the man, Newton police spokesman Bruce Apotheker said. One, Celtics strength and conditioning coach Bryan Doo, grabbed the automated external defibrillator (AED), a simple-to-use machine that is designed for bystanders and bridges the critical moments between the beginning of cardiac arrhythmia and the arrival of paramedics.

Doo connected the AED, which detected an arrhythmia and applied one shock to the man. By the time police arrived just before 10 p.m. last Wednesday night, the man had a pulse.

A spokesman for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where the man was transported, said he was in stable condition. The man, reached in his room, did not wish to release his name but was responsive.

Credit is now being given not just to the man’s friends who applied CPR, but also to a nearby doctor whose successful lobbying for the AED’s installation proved life-saving.

Dr. Matthew Shuster, a geriatrician with Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, lives just across a field from the Hyde Community Center. He said he has frequented the various basketball leagues that rent the court on weeknights for years.

After friend Stu Williams passed away in 2001 while playing basketball in a Newton league, Shuster pressed for various athletic venues in town to install AED machines.

“It took three or four years,” Shuster said, “but we decided after that we had to have the machine, to honor his memory and use it if necessary.”

A machine was donated to the Hyde (as it’s called by regulars) in 2005, and Shuster assumed the responsibility of maintaining the machine, periodically updating its software, checking the pads, changing the batteries and running diagnostic tests.

That diligent maintenance paid off in a big way last week.

“We feel really great that we were able to help save somebody’s life,” Shuster said, also crediting Doo, who was trained on the use of AEDs.

Shuster said that while the machines are not magic bullets, they are a vital tool in managing heart attacks, where every passing second means an increased risk of permanent brain damage or death.

When coach Joey Spann’s heart stopped at mid-court during a high school basketball game in Nashville, bystanders were at his side within seconds with the device that saved his life.

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An automated external defibrillator, or AED, sat ready in a cabinet less than 50 feet away.

Joey Spann the Survivor

When Spann collapsed during a game at David Lipscomb High School in February, nurses who had been in the bleachers rushed to the court to perform high-quality CPR.

With one shock from the AED, Spann’s heart started beating again and he woke up.

He underwent quadruple bypass surgery the next morning.

The school said Spann is doing well and hopes to return to campus later this month.

Mr Rolf Regel had played until half-time for his social basketball team and was on the sidelines when he collapsed and went into cardiac arrest.

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Nurse Cassie Robinson and friend Seona Whitfield were playing on another court and rushed over when they noticed Mr Regel was in trouble.

Rolf Regel the Saviour

Ms Robinson performed CPR until MISC staff member Liz Shurey, with Joyce Roberts, came over and used the centre’s defibrillator for the first time.

“It was eye-opening to see firsthand how important they are to have at a community venue and just how easy they are to use,” Ms Robinson said.

Paramedic Peter Watts, one of the first paramedics at the scene, said that while Mr Regal was unconscious when he arrived he was in a better condition than he would have been had the defibrillator not been used.

“Even though we have quite powerful anaesthetic and cardiac drugs, without the defibrillation, good CPR and the continuation of blood circulation in his body the damage could have increased to where his heart muscle actually died,” Mr Watts said.

Mr Regel praised the work of the people who came to his aid and the defibrillator. “According to the cardiologist my heart hasn’t suffered much damage.”

While he has given up playing basketball twice a week, Mr Regel is happy to encourage other clubs and venues to buy portable defibrillators.