First Aid Corps

Kathryn Hardy had just entered Hermitage High School on Tuesday morning when she collapsed. Her heart stopped beating.

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She was facedown in the stairway of the school’s gymnasium, her book bag still on her back, when physical education teacher Nancy M. Steiner arrived, responding to students’ calls for help.

Kathryn Hardy the Survivor

Steiner called for help through her two-way radio. In seconds, nurses Sandra M. Ruder and Catherine T. Brawley were assisting Hardy, who was revived with the help of an automated external defibrillator.

The 19-year-old Henrico County junior, with no history of heart disease, had suffered a cardiac arrest at about 8:40 a.m. as students were heading to their first-period classes.

Friday afternoon — a day after doctors at Bon Secours St. Mary’s Hospital installed a pacemaker on her chest that will help her control an abnormal heart rhythm — Hardy returned to Hermitage to surprise and thank the people she said saved her life.

She was smiling, energetic and looking as healthy as if nothing had happened to her just three days earlier.

“Did you save me? I can’t remember who saved me,” she told Ruder as she entered the school clinic in surprise.

“I think it’s the man upstairs,” the nurse responded and hugged her. “I’ll tell you one thing. I never ever want to see this happen to you again!”

Hardy’s father, Antonio Hardy, said his daughter is alive today thanks to the people at the school who did the right thing, including grabbing an AED and using it properly.

“I don’t think there is a word in any language to express how grateful I am,” Hardy said. “I am grateful to everybody that was involved in saving her life.”

“The students that were involved, the staff that was involved, the police officer that was involved went above and beyond what they were supposed to do,” he said.

As Ruder and Brawley arrived in the gym, they thought Hardy had fainted or had suffered a seizure, more common among teenagers, they said. But an application of ammonia didn’t help Hardy regain consciousness and her skin turned blue, the nurses said.

“At that point we knew the situation was a little bit deeper than just fainting or maybe even a seizure,” Ruder said. “Ms. Brawley and I figured she wasn’t breathing. … We could not feel her pulse whatsoever and we started CPR.”

Steiner ran to get an AED that was in the gym while Ruder, Brawley, and senior police officer Glenn “Chip” Holder tried to resuscitate Hardy. They then applied the device and it determined that a shock was needed.

After a second shock, Hardy’s pulse resumed and she was breathing. It took approximately 10 minutes from the moment Hardy collapsed to when she was resuscitated, school officials said.

Though AEDs are not required, there is at least one at every Henrico school, district spokesman Mychael Dickerson said. The devices cost roughly $1,000 and lead users through the steps needed so they can be used with little or no training.

At a school where the two nurses stay busy treating sports injuries or minor health problems, as well as keeping an eye on students with more significant health concerns, a student suffering cardiac arrest was unexpected.

“It is uncommon for a child to have cardiac arrest,” Ruder said. “Kids do have seizures. We have kids that have diabetes that pass out. … But this is the biggest thing that has ever happened to all of us.”

The closest to something similar was two years ago when a parent suffered heart failure outside the school and died, Principal Omega W. Wilson said Thursday afternoon as she recalled Tuesday’s scene at the gym.

So many things could have gone wrong, but everything happened in perfect timing and it was a true team effort, said a teary Wilson who, with Associate Principal Diane R. Saunders, was also at the scene Tuesday.

“They were the ones that brought her back to life,” Wilson said of her staff and Holder. “These are my heroes because they are humble and they saved a life. They saved the life of a child.”

A court officer with medical training spun into action to save a baby girl who stopped breathing after a seizure outside the Bronx County courthouse.

Jose Reyes the Saviour

“I’m not a hero,” Supreme Court Officer and certified EMT Jose Reyes told the Daily News shortly after the rescue yesterday afternoon. “I’m still shaking.”

Little Emely Carrasco’s father disagreed.

“I don’t think words can describe how thankful I am,” said Edwin Carrasco.

“You’re talking about a guy who brought my daughter back to life. I don’t know how to thank him. I didn’t know we still had people like that out here.”

Reyes, 44, was helping a co-worker with a sprained ankle into an ambulance on Walton Ave. when an SUV screeched to a halt.

“Please help me! My baby’s not breathing!” Edwin Carrasco was yelling.

“I opened the door and there was a young lady crying and yelling and holding a baby,” said Reyes, a father of three.

“The baby had had a seizure and stopped breathing, so I grabbed the baby and ran to the ambulance that was already there,” said Reyes.

“It was instinct that just kicked in.”

The “really cute little girl,” who turns 2 on June 24, was limp and blue, said Reyes. He put her in the ambulance and began to perform CPR.

“I was so scared,” he said. “I was really nervous. I just wanted to make the baby start breathing again.

“I went to put my face to her nose to see if she was breathing and she started to move, so I knew she was coming to. She started to throw up, and I felt a lot better.”

A second ambulance whisked Emely to Bronx-Lebanon Hospital’s emergency room, where Reyes visited her after finishing his shift.

A sore throat gave her a high fever that led to the seizure, a doctor told her father.

“When she started breathing again, I came back to life, too,” said Edwin Carrasco, 25. “The doctor said she’ll be better soon.”

Julianna Marquez, 9, knew something was wrong. It was late afternoon on a hot June day, and no one else — not even the adults — seemed to notice the little boy face-down on the bottom of the apartment complex swimming pool.

Julianna Marquez the Saviour with Quamir Cooper the Survivor

Julianna, a third-grader with wavy brown hair, was nearby in the water. She swam beneath the surface and pulled 4-year-old Quamir Cooper to the pool’s edge.

“I wasn’t really thinking,” Julianna said Tuesday. “I was just like, ‘OK, I’m just going to grab him.’ ”

Julianna’s heroism was recognized in a poolside ceremony Tuesday after Roanoke County officials said she helped save Quamir from drowning at the pool of the Villages at Garst Creek in Roanoke County.

The police officers, paramedics and good Samaritans who helped gathered for the ceremony, where they recounted the drama that unfolded June 1.

Sheena Rosser, Quamir’s mother, was arriving at the apartment complex pool with Quamir and her daughter, Alaejah. The pool isn’t staffed by a lifeguard, and as she ran back to her car to grab pool towels, Rosser lost sight of the young boy.

Quamir floated briefly before sinking to the bottom of the pool’s 5-foot deep end.

Nearby, Julianna noticed Quamir hadn’t resurfaced.

Without hesitation, Julianna said, she swam to the bottom of the pool. She opened her eyes underwater and could see that Quamir wasn’t moving.

Julianna grabbed hold of Quamir’s tiny frame and lifted him to the surface. By then, adults took note of the struggle and helped lift the boy onto the concrete pool deck. His body was limp and showed no signs of life.

Timothy Tilley, sitting nearby with his children, rushed over.

“There was a panic, and I come over to see what was going on,” said Tilley, 30. “We realized the boy wasn’t breathing, so I felt like, you know, we was wasting time.”

Inside the apartment management office, Roanoke County police Officer Bobby Zizelman, 30, was wrapping up an unrelated call to settle a disturbance that had brought him and other officers to the complex.

“I heard a bunch of screams coming from the pool area,” Zizelman said. He ran outside and saw a group of people standing around Quamir.

As Zizelman radioed for an ambulance, Officer Darin Hogan, 42, ran from his car in the parking lot. He approached the unconscious Quamir and couldn’t find a pulse.

The boy was dying.

Sgt. Jay Matze, a 14-year Roanoke County police veteran, was leaving the complex from the disturbance call and heard Zizelman’s urgent radio call for help. He quickly turned around.

“By the time I got to the pool, I saw Quamir laying here on the deck,” Matze said. Tilley “was already at his head. I just came around and between the two of us, we started doing CPR.”

For three minutes, Tilley and Matze, 47, worked together to save Quamir’s life: Tilley issuing breaths through Quamir’s mouth, and Matze performing compressions on the boy’s torso.

“The thought never crossed my mind that he wasn’t going to come out of it,” Matze said.

Quamir tried to breathe, but started choking. Matze and other officers gripped him in the Heimlich maneuver and cleared his airway.

Life soon returned to the boy’s body and he began coughing up water. By the time a Roanoke County Fire and Rescue Department crew arrived a few minutes later, Quamir was crying and asking for his mother.

Quamir was taken to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, where he stayed for two days. Tuesday was the first time Quamir and his mother had seen the rescuers since the event.

Following the ceremony, Julianna hugged Quamir and asked if he was OK. The shy boy turned away from her — and the television and newspaper cameras — but offered up a smile across his mother’s arms.

“I owe my life to her,” Rosser said of the 9-year-old rescuer. “I would do anything for her. If it weren’t for her, he wouldn’t be here.”

Wednesday’s ceremony at the pool was attended by Roanoke County Police Chief Ray Lavinder, among other officials.

The officers who responded presented Julianna and Tilley with awards for their actions.

“In a day and age when nobody wants to help each other, this little girl and this guy … just hopped down there and no questions asked started giving CPR,” Zizelman said.

Matze, who said he has young children of his own, hugged Quamir and presented him with an honorary SWAT challenge coin, a police token that signifies participation in the elite group.

“When you grow up, you gotta do something nice for someone, OK?” Matze told him. “And when you grow up and you see me some day, you come find me, and you shake my hand.”

Connie Hall-Burke, a nurse at Mercy Memorial Hospital in Monroe, and her husband, Kevin Burke, a former firefighter in Woodhaven and Brownstown Township, were walking in front of 2-year-old girl Madison’s house at the moment her mother rushed out screaming at them, asking if they knew CPR.

“What she said was so chilling,” Connie said. “She said her baby fell in the pool and she’s not breathing.”

Connie and her husband ran into the house past nine other children. She recalled the “look of horror” on the faces of everyone as she was handed the lifeless child by one of the home’s residents.

“It didn’t feel like she was alive,” Connie said. “There was no pulse and she was a steel blue and getting darker. She was soaking wet.”

Connie started rescue breaths, but it didn’t take long for Kevin to realize they were not working.

He started doing back blows and water started spewing out of the girl’s mouth, but she still was not responding.

As everyone around them was in a panic, Connie said she was hoping she was doing all the right things to save the girl’s life.

Kevin put his hands around Madison’s rib cage and Connie cleaned her nose and mouth to clear her airway. He began doing compressions.

“I could hear everyone in the background just screaming and praying,” Connie said. “I’ll never forget the feeling of her in my arms. Then, her mother leaned over and said, ‘Madison, you come back right now.’”

After about 90 seconds of compressions, Madison let out “a thrust of cries.”

“At that moment, for the first time, I thought we were winning,” Connie said. “I thought we had snatched her (from death). But, she went right back to having no response.”

Connie told Madison’s mother to keep touching her, that the little girl knew she was there.

Connie said that when police officers arrived, they immediately recognized the gravity of the situation.

Connie and Kevin said all they had to work with was the family’s kitchen table, and Madison needed a whole lot more than that. She said emergency personnel “scooped her up and ran.”

Once Madison was taken away, the couple found themselves standing in a stranger’s kitchen having just dealt with the enormity of a life-and-death situation.

“All I knew was that the little girl’s name is Madison,” Connie said. “Kevin and I both cried pretty hard in the front yard. We didn’t have the feeling that she was going to live. We just walked back home and didn’t know what to do with ourselves.”

Connie and Kevin had such an emotional investment in the girl that they couldn’t stand not knowing the status of her condition.

The couple called a friend in the nursing field for help and received an email at about midnight that there was no word on Madison’s condition.

However, they were able to get their telephone number passed along to Madison’s parents.

Connie and Kevin eventually got what they were hoping for — a message from Madison’s father.

“He called me and left a beautiful message,” Connie said.

Madison has since been released from a hospital and has made a full recovery.

About a week after her release, Connie and Kevin had a private reunion under much happier circumstances with Madison and her parents.

The reunion was emotional for everyone.

“We were in the right place at the right time,” Connie said. “Now she gets to go to kindergarten and do other things.”

They believe that Madison has “awesome, loving parents” and simply called the circumstances an accident. Nevertheless, they view this “traumatic experience” as a teachable moment for other parents.

Connie said it is important for all parents to know CPR, especially if there is a pool and children are around.

Connie and Kevin have been married for 27 years and have four children. They also have a 2-year-old grandson.

The two credit each other for being the “hero.”

That day — May 22 — will forever be significant in their lives and they couldn’t be happier that their neighborhood walk took a turn that helped save a life.

It was a lazy spring afternoon when the radio crackled to life.

“Difficulty breathing at 331 Wildwood Way.”

Half a mile away, Todd Mehl rushed to his truck. Minutes later, the volunteer firefighter arrived on the scene.

In the bathroom, 18-year-old James Stuart laid, unmoving. Mehl checked his pulse and felt a faint beat.

“Something told me to check it again. The second time I didn’t feel anything,” Mehl said.

The trained Emergency Medical Technician sounded the “full arrest” alert and initiated cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

“I knew I had to keep it going until the cavalry arrived,” Mehl said. “In my head, it felt like an eternity. In reality, it was probably two minutes.”

At a family barbecue, Kevin Worley heard Mehl’s call. At the Priceville Fire Department, Worley and Steve Wilson picked up a defibrillator. If needed, the machine, hopefully, could shock Stuart’s heart back to life.

At the house, Worley and Wilson found Mehl leaning over Stuart, pumping his chest. There was still no breath, no pulse, no life. The Brewer High School student who loved basketball, football and trains was turning blue. After each round of CPR, Mehl stopped and waited. Nothing.

With each passing minute the odds for survival faded. According to statistics, only 2 percent of patients in full arrest survive. They needed to get Stuart’s heart beating immediately.

“You can’t think about it. You have to go on instincts,” Wilson said. “But when a child is involved, a little more goes into it. We just had to do what we were trained to do.”

Worley and Wilson unzipped the defibrillator, tore open the pads, placed them on Stuart’s chest and prepared to administer a shock after the sixth round of CPR.

Then everything stopped as Mehl checked for a pulse. There it was, a faint beat. And then, the shallow breathing.

“It was amazing to see his color come back and see him pink up. It was an awesome thing,” said Worley.

“That is exactly what it is, awesome,” Wilson said.

“You can do this for a number of years and never experience that,” said Wilson, who also serves as the department’s lay chaplain.

“There are no words to describe it. The only thing I can relate it to is seeing your children born. There is nothing like it,” Mehl added.

The ambulance arrived minutes later and whisked Stuart to Huntsville Hospital where he was airlifted to Birmingham.

Left behind were Mehl, Worley and Wilson. They repacked their bags, zipped up the defibrillator and went back to their lives, not knowing if Stuart would survive.

“We always want to find out what happens to the patients. The bad thing is we can’t because of HIPPA laws and privacy issues,” Wilson said.

But they needed to know. Mehl returned to the Stuart home several days later and knocked on the door. Nancy Stuart answered. James, she said, had survived.

That was more than a year ago.

“I’m doing great. The doctor says, well, I’m perfect,” said James Stuart.

Sitting with Mehl, Worley and Wilson at the fire station on Bethel Road, Stuart proudly wore a Priceville Firefighter shirt. After all, he is an honorary member.

“I don’t remember anything about that night. The first thing I remember is waking up in Birmingham the next day,” Stuart said.

On April 11, Stuart celebrated his 19th birthday. He is working toward his GED and dreams of becoming a railroad engineer. Nancy Stuart said a heart condition called hypoplastic left heart syndrome — a congenital condition that occurs when parts of the left side of the heart do not develop completely — caused James to have a seizure and his heart to stop beating.

“Together, (the firefighters) worked to save my son’s life. Using only hands-on CPR, they got his heart back beating,” Nancy Stuart said. “The three heroes I met on April 25, 2010 are, thankfully, a part of our family now. James has two birthdays due to these wonderful men.”

They shy away from the term hero. They were just doing what they trained to do.

“We are not heroes,” Mehl said. “Heroes die in the line of duty.”

“I just thank God that we were given the opportunity to use what we knew to help somebody,” Worley said.

But to Nancy Stuart, there is no other word to describe Mehl, Worley and Wilson. They are heroes.

“What these men did was amazing. I will never be able to thank them enough,” she said.

Every few months, the volunteer firefighters meet up with the Stuarts. According to Nancy Stuart, they are all one family now.

“Every time I see him it is amazing. The first time I saw him it brought tears to my eyes,” said Worley.

Mehl, Worley and Wilson represent three of the 40 volunteer firemen who serve Priceville, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Last year, they responded to more than 800 calls. A majority of calls come in the middle of the night.

While the community sleeps, they are removing trees from the roads, extricating individuals from cars and responding to fires.

“These are amazing men,” said Wilson, who works during the day at International Paper. “They are a group of people who get up in the middle of the night to protect others. I am lucky to be associated with them.”

Worley spends his days at 3M, and Mehl works at Nucor.

They are volunteer firefighters. They do not get paid. They do it to serve the community.

“We are blessed to have this opportunity to give back and serve and do for others,” Wilson said.