First Aid Corps

Anne Arundel County fire officials are crediting the quick work of two health club employees with saving a Pasadena man’s life Friday morning in Millersville.

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The incident took place shortly before 8 a.m. at the Severna Park Raquetball and Fitness Club, located in the 8500 block of Veterans Highway. Fire officials said a 72-year-old man collapsed while playing racquetball. Employees Kevin Davis and Chuck Newby found the man not breathing and without a pulse.

Davis began CPR as Newby assisted, fire officials said.

The employees then applied a shock using a Automatic External Defibrillator, or AED, to the man with no response.

Within two minutes of the call, firefighter Lt. Brian Mayers, who was on duty in the area responded to the club. Mayers took over CPR from Davis as a second shock was applied to the man.

Eventually, the man regained a pulse and began breathing and subsequently regained consciousness, fire officials said.

Heart attack victim Herbert Rotchford knows that he wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for the quick action of bystanders applying a shock from an automatic external defibrillator.

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Rotchford, 75, and his wife Judith had just arrived at the Havelock Senior Center to play Bingo on Feb. 1 when he passed out.

It soon became apparent that Rotchford was having a heart attack and 911 was called.

Their friend, Irene Hess, began CPR, then used a portable automatic external defibrillator to apply an electrical shock to Rotchford as he lay on the floor.

Herbert Rotchford the Survivor

“She put one patch on and I put one patch on and we waited for the machine to say what to do,” Judith Rotchford said. “The machine said shock once and she pushed the button. She continued CPR until the rescue guys got here.”

The reaction to the shock was immediate.

“They said that when they shocked me, I raised right up off the floor,” Herbert Rotchford said.

Jason Morand, a firefighter/paramedic with the Havelock Fire and Rescue Department, responded to the call.

“We pretty much found him lying on the floor with a bystander doing CPR,” he said. “He didn’t have a pulse. We took over CPR. We put him on the monitor, got him on the ambulance. That’s when we started doing all the other interventions. That one time was the only time he was shocked. I’m 100 percent sure that’s what saved his life.”

It’s the second time that the wall-mounted box has been brought out to save a life at the senior center. Other AEDs are kept at the Havelock Tourist and Event Center and the Havelock Recreation Department. Eight units were recently placed in Havelock Police Department patrol cars.

The paramedics say that the initial minutes following a heart attack are crucial. If the victim doesn’t get oxygen, they begin to die.

“All your organs start shutting down, one by one,” Morand said. “You start losing oxygen to your brain so you develop brain damage. Your heart tissue starts dying off.”

Morand and fellow firefighter/paramedic Scott Dorsett were the first to arrive and found Hess performing CPR on the victim.

“He wasn’t in the best shape. I’m really glad that we have the AEDs in the city. That saved his life,” Dorsett said. “At the fire and rescue department, we’re just so excited that we can be involved with that because it’s a little bit more of an outreach. We get to interact with people and train them with the AEDs. We just placed AEDs in most of the cop cars and trained the police officers how to use them. We’re just so excited to be more involved in emergency medicine in the community.”

Studies have shown that sooner defibrillation in this type of instance is key to saving someone’s life.

“You want early intervention because oxygen levels in the bloodstream are still high, so if we had maybe been here 10 minutes later and he hadn’t been defibrillated, we would have to have done CPR and put oxygen back into his bloodstream to actually have a chance at reviving his heart,” Dorsett said. “The fact that it happened right there so soon increased his chances of survival tenfold. That’s why you see AEDs around in the community and that’s why the Havelock Fire Department is pushing to have AEDs in the community. It’s so vital to have that early defibrillation in these types of instances.”

Wayne Lee, another responding paramedic, said the defibrillation is the key.
“Most of the time they don’t survive it. To have him walk out is amazing,” he said. “That’s the only way you’re going to make the heart do what it needs to do to get back in rhythm is to defibrillate it. It’s really fortunate that Mrs. Hess was here to be able to use that device and that we could follow up behind here to make sure that he made it up to the hospital.”

Herbert Rotchford said he appreciated everyone’s effort to save his life.

“By doing CPR, they forced my lungs to breathe and put air into my brain. Fortunately with the shock, the CPR, I’ve survived and I’m fully functional,” he said. “I could have been a vegetable, literally. The first time I came back I thanked everybody here, because I literally died and these guys and Mrs. Hess brought me back. I’m thankful for it. I was fortunate.”

A Portarlington man was literally brought back to life last month by staff of the leisure centre, after he suffered a serious cardiac arrest in the steamroom.

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A dramatic rescue got underway at the poolside while shocked swimmers were led out, in what was the first resuscitation involving the pool defibrillator.

At about 10am, the gentleman who is in his 60s, was relaxing in the steamroom when he stood up, then simply dropped to the floor. He was no longer breathing and had no heartbeat.

Pam Quirke the Saviour

Luckily another customer was in the steamroom, and she immediately called out for help.

A lifeguard hit the emergency button to alert the centre’s CPR team, led by trainer Pam Quirke, who praised all the staff for their quick reaction.

“It really was an amazing team effort. I was absolutely delighted to see how the training kicked in for everyone, no-one shied away, but we really were emotional afterwards,” she said.

Within 90 seconds, they had begun chest compressions, and called for an ambulance.

Two minutes later, the patient was connected to their defibrillator, receiving his first shock. This gained no response, so the team continued, taking it in turns to giving him breaths and chest compressions. Another stronger shock was administered, and within seconds, the man began to try and breathe on his own.

Two advanced paramedics then arrived on the scene and took over. It was just six minutes into the emergency, but in another stroke of luck, Robert Morton, director of the National Ambulance Service, and Brendan Whelan, head of training, both live in Portarlington. They respond to local calls even while off duty, if they are available.

Minutes later the ambulance arrived so that within an hour and a half of his cardiac arrest, the Portarlington man was receiving specialist treatment at St James’s Hospital in Dublin.

He has recovered remarkably well and a week later had returned home to his wife and family.

“Everything that could have gone right, went right,” said a relieved Pam.

She had particular praise for her gym instructer Julie, who had the foresight to help frightened customers out of the pool, and drove out to tell the patient’s wife and daughter in person about the emergency.

The centre have since received a letter of commendation from Mr Morton of the National Ambulance Service, praising their “swift and dedicated actions in demonstrating the very best that any victim of cardiac arrest could hope for, the ability and determination to save a life”.

Manager Sean Quirke is proud of his staff, who run the only Gold standard White Flag leisure centre in Laois and Offaly.

“Thankfully on this occasion, the combined efforts of a customer raising the alarm, our team, the advanced paramedics, the cardiologist and the customer’s own strength and family support have beaten the odds,” he said.

It was a life-saving gift operators of a community centre hoped they would never need to use.

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But an Ilkley pensioner has praised an off-duty fireman for his quick-thinking by treating her husband with a defibrillator … just one day after it was presented to the centre.

The firefighter, who was a guest at the same wedding reception, was called into action after Derek Rowson collapsed while dancing with his wife, Julie, at the Clarke Foley Centre in Cunliffe Road.

He came to Mr Rowson’s aid by using the defibrillator – a £1,000 gift from Ilkley Round Table presented the day before – reviving the pensioner before he was taken by ambulance to Airedale Hospital in Steeton.

Mr Rowson was taken to hospital for overnight observations, where his condition was diagnosed as an irregular heartbeat. He is now recovering at home in Ilkley.

Mrs Rowson said it was a “great relief” the machine and a trained user were on hand to save her husband’s life.

She added: “The fireman was wonderful – he was the first one who took charge and decided the defibrillator was required.

“He got the machine and brought him round.”

Mr Rowson, who is in his 70s, is a volunteer at the Clarke Foley Centre, which runs events for the over-50s. He works as a cook at the centre’s popular lunch-eon club.

The wedding reception was taking place for one of the centre’s directors.

Centre manager, Judith Ellis, said: “In spite of it being so traumatic and absolutely awful for Julie and Derek, it was very reassuring for all of us – it proved the worth of having the machine here.

“We’re very grateful to the Round Table for providing it for us, and to Addingham Heartstart for providing training.”

Judith also praised the ambulance crew, who arrived quickly to transfer Mr Rowson to hospital.

Ilkley Round Table vice-chairman, Richard Brad-ley, said he was “delighted” to hear the club’s donation had already made a life-saving difference.

On Wednesday, September 26, Mr Connell was enjoying a game of bowls at the Iluka Bowling Club when everything went black.

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The fit and seemingly healthy retiree had no idea at the time but he had just suffered a massive heart attack.

“To be quite frank I had no idea what happened – I can only go on what other people tell me, so apparently I simply collapsed while I was playing bowls, there was no warning whatsoever it was about to happen,” Mr Connell said.

“I immediately lost consciousness, there’s just nothing in my mind about what happened after that.”

Fortunately for Mr Connell a few of his fellow bowlers knew CPR and the club was also equipped with a portable defibrillator unit. A combination of CPR and the use of the defib unit kept Mr Connell alive until medical help arrived in the form of Iluka doctor David Richards and paramedics from Maclean.

Mr Connell was then transferred by the Westpac Helicopter to Lismore Base Hospital, then to the John Flynn Hospital’s specialist cardiac unit for medical treatment. Dr Richards said there was little chance Mr Connell would have survived it if it was not for the portable defib unit and the quick-thinking onlookers who knew CPR.

Mr Connell said the next thing he remembered was waking up in hospital to the very relieved faces of his wife, Lyn, and his daughter.

“The doctors weren’t sure if I’d suffered brain damage or not so when I woke up I think my wife and daughter were more relieved than I was – they didn’t know what I’d be like,” he said. “But I was really lucky and I seem to have gotten away with it.”

During his stay in hospital, Mr Connell was fitted with a pacemaker-like device which will hopefully prevent another heart attack in the future.

Now home again and feeling much better, Mr Connell said he was extremely grateful to the people who performed CPR and grateful the club had a defib unit.