First Aid Corps

On June 10, while visiting friends in Goshen, New Hampton resident Dean Ouderkirk suffered a heart attack.

Dean Ouderkirk the Survivor

He was returning home from a reception for Occupations’ president and CEO. But before hopping on Route 17, he decided to say hello to his good friend, Joe Bayno, who resides on Fletcher Street in Goshen.

Bayno says Ouderkirk would often stop in for a cranberry juice and club soda after running afternoon errands in Goshen — but it was highly unusual for him to do so in the evening.

“We went out to the patio. He sat down — and went straight backward,” Bayno says. “His eyes were staring up at the sky. He was not breathing.”

Bayno immediately reached for his cell phone, which is always with him — he doesn’t have a land line — and didn’t lose a second dialing 911. He was instructed to put one hand under Ouderkirk’s head to prevent it from slamming into the concrete floor as he began forceful chest compressions with the other.

“I was banging his chest with a flat hand as hard as I could,” says Bayno. “I must have done it at least 50 times.”

Officer Christopher Smoulcey of the Village of Goshen Police Department was behind the track at the Harness Racing Museum — less than a minute away — when the medical call came through. Officer James M. Malgieri was on Greenwich Street.

“I had the defibrillator with me in the front seat,” says Smoulcey, who grabbed it as he left his car and ran to Bayno’s front door. There was no response, so he went to the screen door on the side house, where he was able to see Bayno kneeling over Ouderkirk. Malgieri arrived shortly thereafter.

Smoulcey unzipped the AED (automated external defibrillator), donated by Marie Durland on behalf of the Pennings Family in 2002. He then opened the packet with the adult defibrillator pads and electrodes. He affixed one to the lower left abdomen area and the other to the upper right shoulder.

“Mr. Ouderkirk was not breathing. There was no pulse. He was blue in the face and had a glassy stare,” says Malgieri. “Joe Bayno did a good job by listening to the instructions he was given when he called 911.”

Smoulcey continued connecting Ouderkirk to the AED. “It analyzes the heart rhythms, and if it detects a shockable rhythm, it directs that you hit the button to administer the shock,” says Smoulcey.

Ouderkirk was shocked twice.

“I did CRP and rescue breaths for a good 10 minutes,” says Malgieri. “There was a gasp, but no pulse, and he was still not breathing.”

Within a few minutes, a paramedic from Mobile Life arrived, soon followed by the ambulance.

“The two cops and I watched as they worked on him,” says Bayno. “They continued with chest compressions.”

And Ouderkirk was shocked twice more.

After a good half-hour, says Smoulcey, Ouderkirk was lifted onto a stretcher, placed into the ambulance and rushed to the emergency room at Orange Regional Medical Center’s Middletown campus.

The defibrillator that was used to save Oudrkirk’s life was donated to the department by the Pennings family, in memory of their brother, Richard Pennings. During Richard’s illness, many friends and relatives donated to a medical fund in his name. After the loss of Richard, the family, Dr. Nick Pennings, Dr. Anthony Pennings, Margaret Hawkins and Marie Durland, donated the defibrillator to the department using those funds.

Ouderkirk and his fiancée, Carole Syverson, came to the Village of Goshen Police Department on Aug. 13 to meet and express their thanks to people who had a part in saving his life.

Dean and Carol’s celebration of life will culminate this April, when they will be married.

“Carol and I are looking forward to our wedding in April. It will be a celebration of life,” he says.

“There’s clearly something left for him to do in this world — besides marry me,” says Syverson. “Maybe part of it is to let people know what wonderful care is available in Orange County.”

The members of the Village Of Goshen Police Department congratulate them and wish them many years of health and happiness together.

Chiasson – who was a nurse before joining the OPP – was at a police association event at Splash Canyon Water Park and Resort on Nursery Road in Springwater Township with her family last week when she was told a woman had collapsed in a nearby pavilion.

Const. Robin Chiasson the Saviour

When Chiasson reached the woman and did a primary assessment there were no vital signs. Instinctively, she began CPR, compressing the woman’s chest while lifeguards went to get breathing apparatus.

“The lifeguards were really prompt in getting the mask they needed and that helped a lot,” she says.

Chiasson worked with the lifeguards to revive the woman until paramedics, firefighters and police arrived.

The woman – in her early 60s – was taken to Royal Victoria Hospital where she remains in serious condition, “but,” adds the young officer, “she’s still here fighting!”

Last November, the mother of three, and constable Peter Hunter of the Southern Georgian Bay OPP detachment, used a school’s AED (automated external defibrillator) and CPR to help revive a 13-year-old boy who was not exhibiting any vital signs after collapsing at James Keating Public School in Penetanguishene.

“I’m beginning to think I need an AED (automated external defibrillator) with me at all times,” she said.

Chris Campbell, 17, crumpled to the ground shortly after a group of Bedford athletes started stretching at the school just after 7 p.m. Tuesday.

“It was a voluntary pre-conditioning workout for all athletes,” said Mark German, who has been recommended to replace the retired Bill Regnier as Bedford’s athletic director. “They were just stretching when he collapsed. I understand that he wasn’t feeling well going into the workout.”

“I looked back and he just had collapsed. He was laying on the ground and he started to have a seizure,” his cousin Daniel Campbell, Jr. said.

Football coaches Lou Nickle and John Groll began administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation immediately.

“Lou and John were just fantastic,” Bedford head coach Jeff Wood said. “Without those two jumping right on and doing CPR, he would be in far worse shape.

“They did everything right. They are great men. The jumped right in without even thinking.”

Monroe County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeremy Lestock was patrolling just a half-mile away from the high school when the call came in. He was in the scene in minutes.

Deputy Lestock retrieved an automated external defibrillator from his cruiser and used it on Campbell.

“He was down and not breathing,” Lestock said. “Luckily, we were right around the corner. That’s probably what saved him.

“Two coaches were already doing CPR. I got out my AED just like we are trained and hooked it up like I have numerous times before and shocked him.”

The Bedford Fire Department and Monroe Community Ambulance arrived moments later. the time Campbell was loaded into an ambulance, he was breathing on his own.

Lestock, who has been a Monroe County Sheriff’s Deputy for 15 years, was impressed with the way that the coaches, firemen and paramedics handled the situation.

“It went as smooth as smooth can be for a scenario like that,” he said. “The way that everyone reacted is why he is still alive.”

Wood, who said about 100 athletes were doing the conditioning workout when Campbell collapsed, was equally impressed.

“There wasn’t any panic,” he said. “Coach (Jeff) Potter and my dad (LeRoy Wood) took care of the other kids while Lou, John and I helped Chris.”

Toledo Hospital reported Tuesday night that Campbell was in stable condition breathing on his own but in the intensive care in an induced coma.

Monroe County Sheriff’s deputies have carried AEDs in their cars for the past five or six years. Lestock was glad he had one Tuesday night.

“They’re expensive, but they are worth it if they save one person’s life,” he said. “I’ll tell you what, you get on that high with what you just accomplished in a situation like that. Then you have to step back and collect yourself and get that next call.”

The workweek had barely gotten started at Shaw Moving & Storage in Crestview on July 12 when a 50-year old employee suffered a major heart attack.

Brian Mccallum the Saviour

“He fell over with a heart attack,” described company president Craig Shaw, describing Skinner’s incident. “It was early in the morning. We hadn’t even done anything yet. He had just gotten here.”

Fortunately for Bernard Skinner, Officer Brian McCallum was on patrol when the emergency call came in. Thanks to his training, fast response and the availability of the emergency device properly called an automated external defibrillator, or AED, the outcome was a happy one.

Shaw said Skinner had no history of heart troubles before the event. He credited the officer and the city’s purchase of the AEDs for saving his employee.

McCallum, a two-year veteran with the force, said audio instructions on the AED talk the responder through the procedure as the device analyzes the victim’s condition. “It determines whether to shock the person,” McCallum said.

As for Skinner, he was released from the hospital and, “He’s alive and up and running around, but he hasn’t been released for work,” Shaw said.

“He surprised me,” McCallum said. “He was out of the hospital within a week. I stopped by and talked to him.”

Dr. Ross Bailey of Mantorville, a veterinarian with the Carriage House Animal Hospital in Kasson, had been on one of his daily jogs when the rhythm of his heart was interrupted.

He went into cardiac arrest, and Kim Thomas of Mantorville saw him collapse on the road.

As a surgical technologist at Olmsted Medical Center in Rochester, Thomas is required to be certified in CPR. She pulled over, called 911 and performed CPR until Dodge County sheriff’s deputy Scott Prins arrived.

“It felt like forever, those eight minutes between the call to 911 and hearing the sirens,” Thomas recalled Tuesday after receiving an award for her life-saving efforts.

“You don’t stop and make choices. You just do what you’ve been trained to do,” Thomas said. “I just clicked into CPR mode.”

Thomas’ efforts made it possible for Prins to treat Bailey at the scene with the automated external defibrillator in his squad car. It was the first time Prins had used the machine in the field.

After receiving the defibrillator shocks, Bailey regained a pulse and was taken to Saint Marys Hospital by Dodge Center ambulance.

“The whole series of events that weekend brought us all to the same place at the same time,” Thomas said. “I know we were all there for a good reason.”

While finishing up a report in the basement of the Gilford Police Station On the evening of June 28 Monday, O’Neill was dispatched to the Keith residence for a man who was unresponsive and not breathing.

Arriving at the house, he got the first aid kit along with the automatic electronic defibrillator out of the car’s truck.

Walking inside the house, he came across the adult laying on his back in a screened-in-portch with another person on the phone with 9-1-1.

This man laying on the floor was motionless and was identified as Rowland Keith.

“Just looking at him I did a quick assessment and it was clear I had to put the AED on him,” said O’Neill.

With family being a priority to him in his own life, O’Neill wanted to do all in his power to help Keith, but also help his family.

Deputy Chief Kevin Keenan was also on scene. With time meaning the difference between life and death, O’Neill told Keenan to cut off Keith’s shirt and proceeded to place the defibrillator pads on Keith’s body.

O’Neill said as soon as he turn the unit on, it advised him to shock Keith immediately, something he was not expecting.

“That completely took me off-guard because I’ve put the unit on people before and it assesses the patient for a few seconds first,” said O’Neill. “It told me to shock him again, at which point I told his son to let go of his father’s hand and made sure I was clear and I shocked him.”

After delivering the shock, the system advised O’Neill to begin cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) until other emergency personnel arrived.

The Laconia Fire Department was on scene first followed by the Gilford Fire Department which was on another call when this incident occurred. O’Neill said it was the greatest feeling to see a dozen firefighters on scene helping, but even greater was seeing Keith beginning to move and function on his own.

“Little by little he just started to come back to life on his own,” said O’Neill. “By the time they put him on the stretcher to bring him out to the ambulance, he was moving his arms and talking. It was awesome to see it come a complete one-eighty.”

“I’m just thankful for the way it played out and he did come back,” he said. “He doing good now. He was released from the hospital the next day.”

“CPR alone wouldn’t have been able to do what the AED did,” said O’Neill.

Thomas Thorburn sipped the last of his minestrone soup just before it happened.

As he sat at the kitchen table, a heart attack gripped his 70-year-old body. It was sudden and painless. Mr. Thorburn fell off his chair and stopped breathing.

“I dropped dead on my kitchen floor,” he said.

His frightened wife called 911, and within 3 minutes Police Chief Otto F. Rhode Jr. and Officer Duncan Baum were there. They performed CPR and used a defibrillator from a police cruiser to try to revive him.

“On the third shock, he took a breath,” Chief Rhode said.

The Rescue Squad soon arrived and took Mr. Thorburn to a hospital.

The next thing he remembers is waking up at UMass Memorial Medical Center — University Campus in Worcester, about three days after the May 14 heart attack.

“They brought me back,” Mr. Thorburn said of the Berlin emergency workers. “I’m one lucky guy.”

Mr. Thorburn, who has a history of heart problems, is also a former chief of the Rescue Squad.

He and his wife, Carol, say health problems are just a part of life that must be dealt with. But Mr. Thorburn is taking one preventive step: “I’m never eating soup again,” he said with a chuckle.

On a warm April day, Miami City Treasurer Pete Chircut joined thousands of Miamians in the Mercedes-Benz Corporate Run through downtown.

Chircut, 61, briskly walked most of it, but near the end he decided to run.

It would be the last thing he remembered before regaining consciousness.

Done with work for the day, Miami police Sgt. Javier Ortiz was at the Häagen-Dazs in Bayside Marketplace, where he snacked on a waffle cone and chatted with a few other city officers, he said.

Another officer’s radio crackled. A lieutenant called out, ” ‘There’s a man in cardiac arrest. Where’s fire rescue?’ ” Ortiz said.

He stood two blocks north, at Northeast Fifth Street, with his police car — and its city-issued automated external defibrillator — parked a block away.

Ortiz ran to his cruiser and drove. He found Chircut sprawled in the northbound lanes, about 200 feet from the finish line. His skin had begun to turn blue, and a group of people surrounded him, performing CPR.

The group included Hollywood Fire Rescue Chief Virgil Fernandez, himself a former member of Miami Fire-Rescue. His wife was running in the event.

Fernandez checked for a pulse — there was none — while others worked on the CPR.

“It seemed like 30 seconds later, this guy in civilian clothes shows up, comes in and brings an AED,” Fernandez said.

Ortiz grabbed his defibrillator bag and stepped in to help.

One person did compressions while Ortiz did rescue breathing, he said.

No pulse.

Fernandez ripped off Chircut’s shirt. Ortiz wiped off the sweat and placed the defibrillator pads on Chircut.

No pulse.

They did one more round of CPR, Ortiz said. Then the machine activated and shocked Chircut once, followed by more CPR.

Finally, a pulse.

About two minutes later, an ambulance arrived and took Ortiz to Mercy Hospital. Ortiz gave the truck a police escort to get it there faster.

The entire time, he only knew the man he helped save as an anonymous runner, Ortiz said. It wasn’t until later, at Mercy Hospital, Ortiz discovered he saved a fellow city employee.

“I was happy that I was able to help out not only a fellow human being, but a city employee,” Ortiz said. “I was just happy that I had the equipment to get the job done and be able to bring him back to life.”

Chircut went on to have double-bypass surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center on May 3, said his son, Gavin Chircut.

He also had a visit from Fernandez.

“He brought me a T-shirt that says City of Hollywood Fire-Rescue,” Pete Chircut said. ‘ He said, `I brought you back one because I tore the other one up.’ ”

This month, Chircut returned to his job, working half days.

“I don’t know what to say, except thank you,” Gavin Chircut said, “and even that doesn’t seem like enough.”

Ortiz is back at work and hoping the event helps the push to get more defibrillators.

Ortiz’s device is one of about 65 bought several years ago with grant money and issued to interested city police officers.

The defibrillators are part of the Miami Fire-Rescue Department’s Public Access Defibrillation program, which started in early 2005 and manages hundreds of the devices across the city in places like public buildings and parks, program coordinator Zachary Nicholas said.

An organization, like the Police Department, buys the machines. For a fee, the Fire-Rescue program provides training on how to use them and monitors the machines for needed changes or maintenance.

Nicholas compared them with fire extinguishers, another device people can use to save lives.

“We’re all out there as human beings, and we all have to be vigilant,” he said. “This is another tool in the arsenal.’

Ortiz hopes his story will inspire the city to find a way to equip all police officers with defibrillators.

“Police are armed with guns and authorized to take lives,” he said. “But, on the other side, we’re also here to save lives.”

The 59-year-old Michigan man had just stepped off a flight at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport from Mexico with his wife and was headed to a connecting flight to Michigan when he went into full cardiac arrest inside Terminal 4 just before 3:30 p.m.

View World Map on AED Locations in a larger map

Deputies Dave Kofalk and Joe Baxter were escorting a prisoner through the airport when they were told about the stricken man, who was not breathing and had no pulse.

The deputies quickly grabbed a nearby Automated External Defibrillator device, also known as an AED, and used it to deliver a shock of electricity to revive the man’s heart beat.

Moments later, the man’s pulse and breathing started up again, and firefighter/paramedics arrived to continue treatment and take him to Broward General Medical Center.

The man underwent surgery Friday night, but his condition was not available.

St. Benedict’s parishioner Mary Louise Perez was in the choir loft during Mass on Sunday when Father Andrew McGuire collapsed mid-service in full view of the congregation.

“He was just turning from the altar and walked to the end to sit down in his chair,” Perez said. “He just keeled over right flat on his face.”

According to Montebello city fire Battalion Chief Rick Lynski, personnel from Engine 55 responded to St. Benedict’s Catholic Church following reports of an about 80-year-old man down at about 10:44 a.m.

Montebello police officers were already on scene and using a device known as an automated exterior defibrillator on McGuire. Lysnki said the patient had no pulse.

Prior to taking the clergyman to the hospital, Lynski said a pulse was established and by the time he arrived at the emergency room, McGuire was conscious and speaking.

Perez, 78 and her husband Joe, 82, who have sung in the choir at St. Benedict’s for the past six years, said an unknown parishioner began administering CPR before emergency personnel arrived. Joe Perez said he later saw emergency workers using the defibrillator on McGuire.

“I saw them give (McGuire) a shock because I saw his legs kick out,” he said.

A woman who answered the phone at St. Benedict’s on Monday and declined to give her name said the pastor was in intensive care but added he was in stable condition.

Rose Lopez, who works in the parish rectory, said she did not know the name of the individual who rendered aid before police and firefighters arrived.