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.

Bentonville junior baseball player, Wes Busby, 17, collapsed as the Tigers ran during a warmup for practice at Tiger Athletic Complex.

A teammate standing near Busby found a faint and erratic heartbeat.

Assistant baseball coach Curt Yarrington and athletic trainer Laura Wilson started CPR while baseball coach Todd Abbott called 911.

Emergency medical technicians arrived within five minutes and used a defibrillator to stabilize Busby’s heartbeat.

“I don’t think (the response) could have been any better,” Abbott said. “I think everybody kept a level head and did what they had to do and worked together. It is such a blessing that it happened that way.”

Busby was taken to Northwest Medical Center where he was kept stable and eventually taken to ACH by ambulance later that night.

After running several tests, doctors at ACH believe Wes Busby has Long QT Syndrome, a heart condition associated with ventricular arrhythmias.

He had surgery last week to place an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, which will help the heart return to normal function if another arrhythmia should occur.

“A lot of things had to happen just right,” Murray Busby said. “If it would have been a situation where nobody knew what was going on, nobody knew what was happening and just stood there, he wouldn’t be with us today. I’m not going to try to sugarcoat it or anything, because there were a lot of good people there that took care of him until the EMTs got there and took over.”

East Union High School attendance office employee Sue Bloodgood didn’t utter a word or make a sound on the morning of Nov. 19.

She just collapsed onto her desk.

The 52-year-old Bloodgood was working with campus monitor Julia Bylow, filing some paperwork to document a small scuffle between students on campus that morning, when she went lifeless and entered into cardiac arrest.

“I went over and said ‘Sue, Sue,’ but no response,” said Bylow, who, as chance would have it, had completed a cardiopulmonary resuscitation course just two weeks before - instruction that helped her save the life of her friend and colleague.

Bylow put Bloodgood in position and began CPR, delivering oxygen to her for four solid minutes, said Karl Knutsen, an East Union JROTC teacher.

After four minutes of CPR from Bylow, head football coach Mike James and Knudsen stepped in for an additional two before the paramedics team of Keith Danel and Jon Mendoza arrived to transport Bloodgood to a Kaiser Permanente facility before she was transferred to Doctors Hospital in Modesto.

“She was lifeless and she had no pulse,” Danel said. “They did an awesome job with the CPR.”

The very next day, Bloodgood was in good health, could take directions, apparently with little to no brain damage.

“I’m just so happy to be here,” Bloodgood said Tuesday night as she delivered hugs and thanks to the employees who were honored by Manteca Unified’s Board of Trustees for their heroic actions.

“Sue wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for them,” said Sue’s husband, Scott Bloodgood.

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.

Rosemary Williams, a 76-year-old retired registered nurse, was walking toward the Eisenhower High School gym with her daughter, Connie Bublitz, to watch a game to be coached by her granddaughter, Sarah Bublitz at a junior varsity match between Eisenhower and Springfield High School..

Williams, who has a history of heart problems, suddenly dropped to the ground while holding on to her daughter’s arm.

“She wasn’t responding,” Connie Bublitz recalled. “There was no response in her eyes, her face, nothing. There wasn’t any pulse.”

Connie Bublitz, a Macon County employee trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, performed chest compressions and delivered a couple of quick breaths into her mother’s mouth.

Michelle Bonebrake, the varsity coach, had just walked over to the gym’s entrance, to speak to the athletic director about an official who had not yet arrived. She spotted the elderly lady on the floor near the door.

“I assumed it was a heart attack,” Bonebrake recalled. “I kicked my heels off, ran across the gym and got the defibrillator.”

When Bonebrake returned, Jennifer Parsano, an emergency medical technician who was pulling concession duty at the game, had taken charge of the scene. As soon as Bonebrake returned with the machine, Parsano said Williams had no pulse and was not breathing.

A couple of students, A.J. Madison and David Reed, called 911.

Bonebrake placed the “defibrillator next to Williams and attached the patches to her chest.

“As soon we put the patches on, it assessed her and checked her heart rate,” Bonebrake said. “If her heart was not beating it would shock her. And it shocked her.”

Because there was no discernible response, Bublitz and another woman resumed performing CPR.

“The machine said, ‘Please stop compressions,’” Bonebrake recalled. “The machine assessed that her heart was not beating. Then it shocked her again.”

Just as emergency medical technicians simultaneously arrived from the Decatur Ambulance Service and Decatur Fire Department - four of five minutes after they were dispatched - Williams took her first breath.

“It was kind of surreal,” Bonebrake said. “I was just holding her hand, and staring into her eyes. I was saying, ‘Breathe, everything is going to be all right.’ Every time I said ‘breathe,’ she would breathe. If I didn’t say anything, she would not breathe. It was so miraculous to me, that she was fighting so hard.”

“That was the first time we ever used it, and thankfully the first time was successful,” Hicklin said. “It was a miracle. It was an extraordinary situation. I was so proud of the quick thinking of Michelle Bonebrake and Jennifer Parsano. They made their Eisenhower family very proud. Today’s been a very emotional day for all of us. It made us stop and reflect on what’s really important.”

Connie Bublitz said her mother, recovering in the intensive care unit of St. Mary’s Hospital on Friday, is doing pretty well.

She commended Bonebrake and Parsano as loving, genuine people, who were in the right place at the right time, and did a great job of helping her mother.

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.

Lindsey was in his office around 6:30 a.m. when others on the track got the attention of assistant coach David Arvin.

A man had collapsed during a walk on the Cobb County Lassiter High School ’s track.

Arvin ran out, and Lindsey and Jim Brown followed.

The coaches started CPR, and deputy Richard Edwards grabbed the automated external defibrillator from the athletic field house.

The stricken man, who has not been identified, was shocked with the AED as emergency responders arrived, following a 6:49 a.m. call to 911.

“When we arrived, he did not have a pulse,” said Denell Boyd with the Cobb County Fire Department.

The man was taken to WellStar Kennestone Hospital after his pulse was detected.

“If there hadn’t been an AED in place and someone trained to use it, the man may not have survived,” Lassiter school nurse Audrey Dinoff said.

It happened around 4pm Wednesday during football practice at Pinewood Christian Academy in Bellville, Georgia.

Dalton Raulerson the Survivor with Parents

Dozens of kids and coaches were on the football field when a lightning bolt came out of nowhere, hitting one of the players.

Student Colby Ambrose was there when the lightning hit 14-year-old William Dalton Raulerson and still can’t believe it happened.

“We’d just gone done stretching and we were going to the practice field and we were crossing the track and all of a sudden you hear this big boom. Everybody was screaming and running trying to get to the field house. We didn’t know what was happening,” said Cody.

“One of the coaches said when he got his vision back, there was a big cloud of dust. He looked back and saw the kids scattering and there was one that didn’t move,” said Volunteer firefighter Robert Jernigan.

Coaches immediately started CPR on the teen, using a defibrillator until the ambulance arrived.

All the players were pretty shook up. A number of them were knocked down to the ground when the lightning hit. They were checked out by doctors and are going to be fine.

Raulerson is in critical condition at Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah. His family is by his side, along with friends, coaches and school administrators.

Updates

“Someone at the hospital told me his heart stopped beating for seven minutes,” said his mother Tanya Raulerson. “I remember thinking he’s probably brain dead. That’s before I knew they did CPR.”

“You know they say it’s just their job,” said Lawrence. “But there’s times people go way beyond their job.”

Dalton has no memory of what happened. His parents have explained his miracle, gradually.

“We sat him down and said you had a really close call,” said Tanya. “The coaches played a big part in you being here. Last night, we finally told him his heart didn’t beat for seven to eight minutes.