First Aid Corps

15-year old ALISON has little recollection of the days preceding her heart attack. She said she woke up on July 20 feeling her “normal self.” What happened next she does not recall, but, her mother does.

Alison Roney the Survivor

Deborah Roney was in the computer room in her house at about 1:15 p.m. when she heard gagging sounds coming from the kitchen. She called out to her daughter, “Alison, is that you or the dog?”

When she received no response, Deborah Roney made her way into the kitchen. She found Alison on the floor, gasping for breath.

Deborah Roney called on her CPR training and began trying to save her daughter’s life with cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.

Deborah Roney’s 9-1-1 Fairfax County call came in at 1:25 p.m., and an ambulance left the Vienna fire station at 1:26 p.m. It, and a fire truck, pulled up at 1:29 p.m. At 1:30 p.m., EMTs were in the house. Three Vienna police cars responded, as well. When the rescue team arrived, Deborah Roney entrusted Alison’s life to them.

“The real story is that they [the Vienna EMTs] got here so quickly and did such a great job,” said Jack Roney.

Alison was intubated with fluid lines and blood draw lines within minutes. The Roneys later found out that Alison was shocked twice with a defibrillator, once at the house and again in the emergency vehicle.

With IV lines already in-place, Alison spent little time in the emergency room. The treatment Alison got at home and en route saved precious minutes in the emergency room at Inova Fairfax Hospital. She was transported shortly after arrival to her room in the intensive care unit.

A staffer from the emergency room stopped by Alison’s room a day or two later. Jack Roney said the woman seemed to be “in awe” of the care that Alison received by the EMTs.

“It’s not so much about us as it is about the efforts of the fire and rescue service,” said Jack Roney. “Their incredible professionalism saved our daughter’s life.”

Alison Roney spent nine days in ICU, much of the time under sedatives. She recalls very little of her whole experience. Her first ingestible meal, spaghetti, came four days after her heart attack. Her mother said she ate and she remembers that. In the hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit, Deborah Roney was called “the mom who saved her daughter’s life.”

Alison Roney left Fairfax Hospital with a defibrillator implant. The life-saving device, known as an ICD, is a small battery-powered electrical impulse generator. When the implanted defibrillator detects arrhythmia, it sends a jolt of electricity to the heart.

“I feel good, normal,” said Alison, a rising sophomore in George C. Marshall High School’s International Baccalaureate program. “Doesn’t seem like any of this happened, except for the scar. I just expect to be alive.”

On Monday afternoon, Aviles, 13, was set to begin a weekly workout at World Gym. After a five-minute warm up, Aviles took a water break.

Edgar Aviles the Survivor

When his trainer, Oscar Carranza, called the young boy to begin the workout session, Aviles stood up and immediately fell to the ground onto his stomach.

“It happened so fast, he didn’t even get to close his water bottle. Edgar was not breathing, there was no pulse and he was starting to turn blue,” Carranza said.

At that point, Jordan Ramirez, a sales rep at the gym who received his CPR certification last Thursday, ran to the boy after Carranza called for his help.

“I didn’t feel a pulse, so I told Oscar we had to conduct CPR,” Ramirez said. “You could tell when Edgar was coming back to life, you could see him come in and out.”

Within three minutes, EMTs arrived on the scene and immediately used a defibrillator that brought the boy back to life.

He was then transported to Providence Memorial Hospital in El Paso, where doctors stabilized his condition.

The next day, Edgar was transferred to University Medical Center of El Paso, where he was diagnosed with arrhythmic heart failure and an enlarged heart.

Elizabeth Aviles was at the gym during her son’s near-death encounter. She said she last talked to Edgar when he came to ask for a water bottle and went back to his workout. She was at another part of the facility when her son collapsed and did not witness the quick response by the two World Gym employees.

“I really thought I was going to lose my son,” Aviles said. “If it wasn’t for Oscar and Jordan my son wouldn’t be alive.”

Three-year-old Jaden Miller was enjoying a day with his parents at Rapids Water Park on July 4, in Riviera Beach, when, without any warning, his heart suddenly stopped.

View World Map on AED Locations in a larger map

Jaden had just come down from the slide when the first signs appeared. “He’s was on my shoulder,” said his father. “I didn’t even know.”

“He grabbed his head like this,” the mother said, pulling at her hair. “You know, like when somebody’s having a stroke, and his eyes rolled back, and he just passed out.”

After suffering the excitement of the water ride, park officials “ran him to first aid,” explained Tina Hatcher, spokesperson for Rapids Water Park.

“They immediately started CPR. We have EMT on staff, so as soon as they started CPR, they had already gone to get the AED [Automated External Defibrillator] and shocked him.”

“They were trying to call his name, but he was unconscious,” said the boy’s mother. “He’s out of it. They couldn’t find any pulse, anything.”

“The AED was put on, and it shocked the heart back to normal,” said Dr. Ming-Lon Young, at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital.

Jaden was moved from St. Mary’s Hospital in West Palm to Hollywood Memorial Hospital’s Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital where doctors implanted a pacemaker-like device that will shock his heart whenever he needs it. “So the patient’s very lucky to be alive,” said Young. “With treatment he can have a normal life, but he will need support.”

“He’s strong,” said his mother, Neffretti Miller. “He’s strong. He’s a good boy.”

It happened March 23rd, during the first class of the day.

Gym teacher Ken Haines said, “The class was doing a mile timed run. He was up toward the front and he was running strong, completed one lap, he was running around and right in this area right here, I saw him collapse down on all fours, seconds later he was just totally unresponsive.”

He was talking about seventh grader Travis Arnold. He radioed nursing assistant Tressa Palmer immediately, and sent students to get help.

“Two girls from the middle school came running and said that they needed me on the track, that a student was down,” said Palmer.

Two other staff members got the school’s defibrillator, or A.E.D. as she ran to the track. “I went over to Mr. Haines, he told me to try and see if I could find a pulse. I could not, Travis was still unconscious,” said Palmer.

Haines said, “She got the AED got right out here, I continued CPR while she hooked him up to the AED and shocked him and she started chest compressions and I was doing the breaths.”

His father, David Arnold remembers the call from the school secretary. “‘The word defibrillator was used’, and I said you only use a defibrillator on someone’s whose heart stopped. And she said Mr. Arnold you need to get to the hospital right now.”

What happened to the him was later called a sudden death episode. His parents say if the stars we not aligned that day, it all would be different. It seems everyone was in the right place at the right time.

A month later, Travis was back to school, and now, he’s just about back to doing all the things he used to do. “Yeah, 99 percent,” said Travis. He’s a man of few words, and thanks his favorite teacher. Dad is thankful he’s here to do it. “Like that day, I was just thankful I got to hug my son again.”

As the staff members and EMTs were honored, the gym teacher that saved his life said, “Travis, thanks for pulling through buddy, I appreciate that, and so does everyone else here”

Ironically, that gym teacher Ken Haines, collapsed in high school during a soccer game, was taken to the same hospital, and saved by a defibrillator.

Ester Marsh, associate executive director of the Salisbury Y, was working outside on some back fields when her radio said the staff was needed for an emergency in the gymnasium.

19-year-old Travis Correll was lying on his side.

Someone already had called 911, and Executive Director Sandy Flowers had arrived with “the suitcase,” which contains the AED, oxygen and other first-aid items.

“I wasn’t happy with the way he was,” Marsh recalled Saturday. She used what she called a judo technique to turn the 6-4, 250-pound Correll onto his back.

She realized there was no pulse and no rising and falling of his chest — he wasn’t breathing.

Marsh started CPR compressions — 30 pushes and two breaths per cycle — while John Peterson prepared the oxygen and Randa and Barbara Franklin readied the AED.

“We all really meshed together,” Marsh said.

The staff communicated without words. Marsh was thinking Correll’s shirt should come off, and Peterson was already cutting it with scissors. She completed the job by just ripping it open.

With the AED pads attached, the words “shock advised” only confirmed what the Y staff knew: Correll was in trouble.

This was the moment of truth they had all trained for.

The group around Correll made sure they were clear, and Mary Jane Randa pushed the button.

Correll’s body jerked from the electric jolt.

The AED’s next words were just as urgent: “Continue CPR.”

After the first shock, Marsh went back to CPR, seemingly pounding on Correll’s chest.

As Marsh was ending her fourth cycle of compressions and breaths, an emergency responder took over and EMS attached its own AED to the Y’s setup.

Again, a shock was advised. After the second jolt, Correll’s heartbeat and breathing returned, and once that happened, EMS wanted to transport as soon as possible.

Travis said he wasn’t fully aware of where he was and what happened to him until three days after he collapsed. By then he was on the cardiac floor at Presbyterian and cognizant that he didn’t really like the food.

Correll said he felt tired that day after playing basketball and told someone he was going to sit down on the bleachers.

“And that’s the last I remember,” he said.

Eight days after his heart stopped, he had his new defibrillator and was going home. Travis walked out on his own, refusing a wheelchair.

When he entered the car to go home, his mother, Wilhemina Lowry, broke down in tears of thankfulness.

“That was the roughest part,” Travis said.

Jordan has no memory of the morning he nearly died at Goodson Rec Center on July 7 while training for his second triathlon of the summer. But his coach, Nick Frasersmith, recalls every detail and the fear he felt.

Jordan Myhre the Survivor

“It was a regular practice,” he said. “There was no sign of anything different from any other day.”

Jordan had just finished the last set, touching the wall before anyone else, and gone straight into warm-down.

Suddenly, Frasersmith noticed that Jordan was swimming crooked. He saw him flip over on his back and sensed something wasn’t right.

Frasersmith yelled to another swimmer to pull Jordan to the side of the pool and raced over.

As the lifeguard called 911, a woman — a nurse arriving for a water aerobics class — offered to help.

They couldn’t find a pulse, so they started CPR. The coach did rescue breathing while the nurse performed the compressions.

The lifeguard rushed over with the AED, an automated defibrillator that detected that the rhythm of Jordan’s heart indicated the need for a shock. They wiped his body dry, applied the pads and began that work.

“It was very surreal,” Frasersmith said. “The weird part was why he was in this situation. It’s not like he hit his head or slipped and fell. I thought, ‘Breathe, wake up, do something.‘ ”

They shocked his heart twice before paramedics arrived.

“It was very scary,” Frasersmith said. “He did not look like he was going to make it.”

“It was the most horrifying, terrible thing that could happen to our son, but it happened in the perfect surroundings,” said his mother, Teresa Myhre.

“I feel fine, just like before,” Jordan said. “The only difference is this thing in my chest.”

Jordan Myhre's Pacemaker

He left the hospital with a pacemaker and a defibrillator, along with a diagnosis of Long QT syndrome, a rare heart-rhythm disorder that can cause fast, chaotic heartbeats.

“I can’t believe I made it this long without anything else happening,” said Jordan, a lifelong athlete who said he loves to push his physical limits.

Learning of his diagnosis, Jordan’s older sister had herself tested for Long QT syndrome and discovered she also has it. She believes that his experience saved her life.

As for Jordan, his biggest challenge right now is taking it easy. He takes walks around the neighborhood but thinks the strolls are “boring.”

As for Jordan, his biggest challenge right now is taking it easy. He takes walks around the neighborhood but thinks the strolls are “boring.”

We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore.

Sometime on Saturday night, Jan. 24, at the Delbarton School basketball court in Morristown, N.J., hearts stopped.

Well, just one actually stopped, but many others skipped a beat at least. Poly Prep’s starting senior point guard and leader on both ends of the court, Stephen Lazzaro, suffered a sudden cardiac arrest during the opening quarter. “It was quite scary,” said assistant coach Glenn McCartney, who helped Lazzaro to the gym floor.

CPR, administered rapidly by Stephen’s dad and teammate Michael Kumar’s dad, Sampath Kumar M.D., both physicans, plus a defibrillator on the scene saved this young man’s life.

A Fund in the name of Stephen Lazzaro has been set up at SUNY Downstate for the purpose of raising monies for cardiovascular research to study valvular heart disease and arrhythmias.

Stephen has turned his attention from playing to helping the team by acting as a mentor to the younger players while helping Head Coach Bill McNally on the bench. He has been an inspiration to many while he rehabilitates from these recent events.

We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore.

Soto, a sixth-grader, had no idea his heart was in trouble until he collapsed on September 26 on his way to first period.

Williams rushed to Soto’s side when he found out he was in trouble.

“When we rolled him over, he took his last breath,” Williams said.

Williams immediately began CPR and called for the school’s automated external defibrillator — commonly called an A.E.D. With the help of four of the school’s coaches — Merrick Sims, Brad Jackson, Tim Mantooth and Clarence Green — Williams got Soto hooked up to the A.E.D., which said Soto required a shock to get his heart back in action.

“As soon as the shock wave went off, he started gasping for another breath,” Williams said. “And I was able to find a pulse coming.”

“I had not doubt we were gonna get Bernardo through this,” Williams said. “No doubt.”

When asked about Mr. Williams’ actions, Soto said, “I feel happy that he did that for me.”

At Children’s Sibley Heart Center, Soto was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

“This was a divine moment and divine timing,” said Assistant Principal Greg Williams. “I feel great every time I see him. It was a meant-to-be moment.”

We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore.

Isaiah Saved

A 10-year-old Stamford boy went into full cardiac arrest Tuesday after colliding with another child at school.

Officials said the incident occurred at 11 a.m. at Heart Magnet School in Stamford.