First Aid Corps

A state trooper and a local police officer worked together to save the life of a driver in trouble at an exit off Interstate 495 in Bellingham.

The trooper and officer performed CPR on a man in a car who had stopped breathing.

After about 5 minutes of first aid the driver began responding.

“You feel good about seeing somebody come back around. Don’t know what’s going to happen, what the outcome is going to be,” said Officer Scott Provost of the Bellingham Police Department.

“You just trust in your training and you hope that the situation works out. You’re doing the best that you can,” said Trooper Kenneth Proulx of the Massachusetts State Police.

The 27-year-old from Milford went home from the hospital on Wednesday. He is expected to be fine.

William Jackson was delivering flowers for his wife’s shop, Edna’s Southpoint Florist, when he passed out at the wheel.

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The incident began about lunchtime on Jan. 5, when the workers at the Mary Washington office discovered that Jackson had crashed into the passenger side of Little’s parked car.

He had apparently suffered a cardiac arrest. He was upright and unconscious in his seat. He still had his foot on the accelerator, and his van was pushing against Little’s Grand Cherokee.

Little, Mock and Hebb rushed to the parking lot to find white smoke coming from the tangle of vehicles, and the horn on the van blaring.

Little said she recalls the strong smell of burning rubber and was afraid that the van might catch fire.

“I don’t know what this car is going to do,” she remembers thinking. “We have to get him out.”

Little grabbed the man’s feet, and the others, including Dawn Shannon, had his head. Together they moved him from behind the wheel onto the ground.

Little is one of the supervisors at the Massaponax office. Mock is a field supervisor, and Hebb is a case manager. All three are registered nurses trained in CPR.

The man had no pulse and was not breathing, so Hebb began chest compressions.

Another employee in the office brought a barrier mask so Mock could begin respirations. And soon Leann Curtis showed up with the office defibrillator.

They raised the man’s shirt and applied the pads, but the defibrillator did not recommend a shock.

When a crew from a Spotsylvania rescue squad arrived, they took over CPR. The crew transported the man to the Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center.

From there, he was taken to Henrico Doctors’ Hospital in Richmond. This week he was transferred to a hospice unit.

“You always want to do what you can,” Little said. “There’s always a chance.”

“It’s overwhelming that people cared and took such initiative for a stranger,” said Scott McGuffin. “We have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving,” said his wife, Colleen. “We’re just so lucky to have people who helped and a hospital that has been innovative.”

Scott McGuffin the Survivor

Eight days before Thanksgiving, McGuffin had a heart attack while driving in Doylestown near the Mercer Museum. He fell unconscious and crashed into two vehicles before slamming into a sign.

Frank Sturza saw the accident, called 911 and ran over and shut off McGuffin’s vehicle, which was revving, authorities said. Cpl. William Doucette of Doylestown police, who was soon on scene, began administering CPR in a desperate effort to save the man’s life, the McGuffins said.

Central Bucks Ambulance personnel arrived and the EMTs used a defibrillator to jump-start McGuffin’s heart. The shock treatment got McGuffin’s heart back into pace just as the ambulance arrived at Doylestown Hospital, said Eugene Vallely, a registered nurse at the hospital.

But McGuffin had experienced a major cardiac arrest and had been unresponsive for about 20 minutes, his heart lapsed in a lethal rhythm, said Vallely. The experts feared brain damage.

“It was very emotional not knowing what was going to happen,” said Colleen McGuffin.

But by last Thursday, McGuffin began to move his fingers and show signs that he could respond to voices, his wife said. By Friday, he could squeeze hands and perform a “thumbs-up” gesture.

“They started taking him off the respirator. That was a big milestone. They began taking out the other tubes,” said Colleen McGuffin. “I started to have a huge sigh of relief that he was going to be OK.”

McGuffin emerged with his long-term memory in working order. Over the weekend he had trouble remembering new things, but by Monday he was already able to recall what had happened the previous day.

He can’t remember the heart attack or accident, but on Tuesday he was walking and talking and expressing thanks for the effort and good fortune that kept him among the living against what medical experts said was fairly steep odds.

In fact, McGuffin’s ribs are what bother him most. Nine of them were broken while CPR was being administered. Vallely said such rigorous CPR was necessary.

“The fact that he got such good quality CPR saved his life,” Vallely said.

McGuffin’s survival was not only emotional for him, his wife and their two adult sons, but also for all involved who helped him, said Vallely.

The quick-acting staff of a pharmacy in Limerick, Ireland recently saved a man’s life with an AED following a car accident.

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Fortunately for the patient, employees at DocMorris Pharmacy on William Street in Limerick had just received life-saving training on the AED a few days earlier.

Pharmacy manager Linda O’Brien said they were trained how to use the defibrillator on Tuesday and the accident happened right after lunch on Friday. “We were lucky the accident didn’t occur a week earlier when we were not equipped with an AED.”

It is believed the middle-aged man went into sudden cardiac arrest while driving up the street and crashed his vehicle into an unmarked Garda (Irish police) car.

Passersby alerted the pharmacy staff who rushed to the scene and retrieved their portable defibrillator as soon as they saw the victim’s condition.

Pharmacist Fatima Sadek used the AED to deliver a shock until paramedics arrived.

he man is expected to make a full recovery in a nearby hospital.

“We never thought we would have to use the AED so soon. The AED guided us through every step of the way,” said O’Brien. “I never realized how important AEDs were until the incident. Every business should have one.”

Charles Gordon slipped into unconsciousness after having the attack at the wheel of his car outside Aberdeen’s Union Square complex on February 16 this year.

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The 76-year-old hit the car in front of him during the incident, which happened beside the centre’s New Look store.

Emergency services were called and police officers pulled Mr Gordon, of Highgate Gardens, Aberdeen, from the car.

Constable Gillian Esson then began giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, until passer-by Ewen Simpson, 42, of Macbeth Place, Lumphanan – an experienced first aider – carried out CPR.

Meanwhile, Richard Lornie, 31, of Devanha Terrace, Aberdeen, who was a passenger in the car which had been hit by Mr Gordon’s vehicle, rushed into nearby Cineworld to find a defibrillator to help save Mr Gordon.

Mr Lornie said he feared the worst after the paramedics arrived but was relieved when he heard Mr Gordon had survived.

“Luckily I was on a refresher course in using a defibrillator the day before, so when I saw Charles I knew what had happened,” he said.

“It is nice to be recognised, but what is more important is that Charles was OK afterwards – he was still in the ambulance when I left the scene and I was not sure he would pull through.

“I was glad to see so many other people wanting to come and help as well.”

Mr Lornie administered a shock before the crew took over.

Mr Gordon congratulated the people who came to his aid, and said: “Everyone since has told me it was a little miracle, and as far as I am concerned that is exactly what it was.

“All I can do is thank them profusely for what they did for me.”