First Aid Corps

A potential life-threatening disaster was averted Wednesday afternoon at the North Dodge Athletic Club thanks to some quick thinking and one of the club’s defibrillators.

View First Aid Corps World Map of AED Locations in a larger map

Local attorney and former state representative Joe Johnston, 73, was playing basketball at the club when he collapsed shortly after noon, a result of a heart issue doctors determined was not a heart attack.

Club manager Skyler Moss, who was playing basketball in a nearby court, ran over when he heard shouting. He grabbed one of the club’s two defibrillators, machines that send electric shocks to the heart to re-establish its rhythm.

Once the machine gave the clear for the first shock, he delivered it and got no response. After a few minutes later, he delivered a second shock — still no response. When paramedics arrived about two minutes after being called, they delivered a third shock. This time, they detected a pulse.

“The shocking thing was he was laying on the ground dead for three or four minutes,” said Randy Larson, who has known Johnston for three decades and helped give him CPR Wednesday. “There was no pulse, no breathing. He was just laying there and people were working on him, but he was making no motions of any kind. To be awake and then talking 20 minutes later, that’s incredible. It’s a great testament to the power of the defibrillator and a fast emergency response.”

Johnston still was in the hospital Wednesday night in good condition, Larson said. He said Johnston has a history of heart problems and had heart surgery a few years ago.

“We always have called him a medical miracle anyway because, you know, he’s playing basketball at 73,” Larson said, “and this isn’t half court basketball, this is regular basketball with 20-year-olds. He’s just an amazing guy.”

Steve Moss, the club’s owner, said it’s not the first time the defibrillator has been used in an emergency situation. Since the club got its first defibrillator in 1999, at least one other man suffering from a heart attack was saved.

Unfortunately, before they got the machine, another man in his late 70s did not. Steve Moss said that man collapsed while playing racquetball and the rescue crew didn’t make it in time to save him.

“That’s one of the reasons we fought like hell to get it,” he said.

They’ve since gotten a second defibrillator, Steve Moss said.

The Johnson County Early Defibrillation Task Force has worked for years to get defibrillators installed in public places around the city. The task force succeeded in getting them placed in more law enforcement vehicles than before, including the sheriff’s office and the North Liberty Police Department.

Johnson County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek, a member of the task force, said that when someone goes into cardiac arrest, their chances of dying increase by 10 percent for every minute that goes by without access to a defibrillator.

“There’s a huge value to it,” Pulkrabek said of having the machines in public places.

Parksville’s 82-year-old Bernie Diakow, a defenceman with the Parksville Panters, was finishing his shift on ice and going to the bench when he collapsed with a heart attack on Sept. 21 at the Oceanside Arena.

View First Aid Corps World Map of AED Locations in a larger map

The four employees – Clayton Bannatyne, Mike Chestnut, John Marcellus and Charles Stockand – are operational employees at the arena.

Ambulance’s Vital Link award. “We were having a rare staff meeting when we heard that Bernie had collapsed,” said Chestnut.

“We rushed to Bernie and he was grey with no vital signs. It was our first time using the defibrillator kit. We checked his airway, did chest compressions and the automated external defibrillator told us to give him one shock. We did everything we could to keep him alive. It was a long and intense 10 minutes before his colour started to come back.”

Ironically, Diakow launched the campaign on behalf of the Parksville Golden Oldies Sports Association to have defibrillators placed in the arena.

He would like to see the life-saving devices and trained staff at all recreational facilities, including the curling club.

“There’s a method to his madness,” said Marcellus. “Since Bernie, we’ve been able to resuscitate two other senior hockey players.” Diakow can’t recall much about the heart attack.

“All I know is what my teammates told me and that’s that I was going to the bench after a shift and I just collapsed.”

He said he was feeling fine before collapsing and had no previous symptoms that concerned him regarding his heart.

Following his collapse, his teammates pulled him to the corridor behind the bench and that’s when Bannatyne, Chestnut, Marcellus and Stockand arrived.

Marcellus said it was the first time the RDN staff had used the defibrillator on a person.

“We had received a lot of training and CPR first aid but when we saw how Bernie looked all nerves disappeared,” Marcellus said.

“Our training just took over.” Still regaining his strength, Diakow hopes to rejoin his hockey team next season.

“I really thank those guys and my teammates because without them I wouldn’t be here.”

Dave Carlstrom, a former Fairbanks airport marketing director and minister, had just finished playing racquetball at a gym in Seattle when his heart stopped in early December. They say he was dead.

View First Aid Corps World Map of AED Locations in a larger map

And he would have been, except the people around him knew just what to do — they gave him CPR and hooked him up to an automatic external defibrillator.

“You never think it will happen to you,” said Carlstrom, who turned 62 the next day. “I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for the quick-thinking staff and members at the gym who were able to apply CPR and activate the AED within three minutes of the incident.”

It happened at the L.A. Fitness center in Ballard. After Carlstrom and his racquetball partner, Leo Muller, sat down after their game, Carlstrom felt ill.

I was “sitting down on the bench, as is our usual custom to catch a breath, putting away the gear, and suddenly feeling a profound sense of unwellness,” Carlstrom told the TV station.

Then he slid to the floor, his face turning purple.

Flight attendant Page Huletz was working out and saw what happened. As part of her airline work, she receives periodic training on CPR and the use of external defibrillators.

As the employees of the health club rushed to perform CPR on Dave, Huletz reached for the electronic device.

“Right away we shocked him, his body comes up off the floor, and then the shock is absorbed and he took his first breath, and that was a miracle right there,” Huletz.

Dave was in the hospital for five days and is back at home. The story says he was “banned” from the racquetball courts until January.

He appeared on the TV story with the flight attendant who saved him and he also posed for pictures with the fire department personnel, who arrived in less than four minutes, and the health club workers.

“There’s been enormous mercy and grace in my life,” Dave said.

I asked Dave by email what it felt like when his heart stopped. He repeated the comment about the mercy and grace that has come his way and said:

“As for what it was like … after keeling over (quick, painless … great way to exit this mortal stage, albeit with a few loose ends for successors and assigns) I only saw darkness, i.e., no beckoning tunnel of light, etc.,” he said.

“I asked our pastor if I should be concerned. She thought a moment and inquired, ‘What was the temperature?’ No flames, so the matter was deemed theologically inconclusive … could be going either way.”

Six women entered the pool for the women’s 100 yard breaststroke at the Florida Senior Games.

Sylvia Eisele the Survivor

Their ages ranged from 75 to 86.

As two other swimmers who were not competing in the race watched from behind the starting block, their eyes locked on one of the competitors who gracefully swam from wall to wall.

“Look at lane 5,” one of them said. “Such a smooth stroke.”

Indeed, lane 5 was full of grace as Sylvia Eisele — who nearly died during a race two years ago — embarked on a memorable day.

In addition to her aquatic elegance, Eisele did make a really big splash on Saturday at Gandy Pool in Lakeland.

Following a two-year absence from competitive swimming, the 82-year-old from the Cypress Lake section of Fort Myers returned to the water in record-setting fashion.

As her husband, Nicholas, watched from the sidelines, Eisele competed in three races and set Florida Senior Games age group records in every one.

“It’s been a great day for her,” Nicholas proudly stated.

“I enjoy the water. I love the water,” Eisele said. “I should have been a fish, not a human being.”

For the past two years, Eisele was a fish out of water.

Two years ago, swimming and everything else in her life came to a sudden halt. Near the end of a long day at a Canadian national competition in Toronto — close to the couple’s home in Mississauga — Eisele suffered a heart incident during a race.

“Two arm lengths from the wall, I felt a pain in my head and I was gone,” she recalled. “I was sinking.”

“Her heart stopped,” said Nicholas.

After being pulled out of the water, lifeguards quickly went to work. One provided mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while the other grabbed a defibrillator.

“I was dead on the deck,” Eisele said. “They had to get a defibrillator to get my heart going.”

The prompt response saved Eisele’s life.

“We were so lucky that there was such good medical help available,” Nicholas said.

Her recuperation in a hospital lasted nine days.

Her absence from competitive swimming lasted two years.

“It’s been rough on her because she’s been a competitor all her life,” Nicholas said.

Before she arrived in North America more than a half-century ago, Eisele was an elite swimmer in her native Austria.

The competitive juices that flowed back then — be it in swimming, tennis, cycling or downhill skiing — are still present today in the pool.

“I like competition. I’m a very competitive person,” she said.

Eisele has been a fixture in the local swim scene since she and her husband moved to Fort Myers 25 years ago. She is a longtime member of the Swim Florida club program run by Mac Kennedy. Eisele still practices right next to the program’s young swimmers.

“Mac gives me a lane. He treats me very nicely,” she said.

Eisele, who has competed around the globe — from Australia to Brazil to Germany to New Zealand and has held world records in masters swimming — showed no signs of rust as she returned to the lanes for competition on Saturday.

Accompanied by a device that is implanted near her collarbone in order to make sure her heart beats the way it’s supposed to, Eisele set new age group records for the women’s 80-84 division in the 100 yard breastroke (2:02), 100 yard individual medley (2:02) and 50-yard breastroke (:53.50).

“She swims the 50 faster than I can walk it,” said Nicholas, 85.

On this day, the records didn’t carry quite as much significance for Eisele. Simply being back in the pool for competitive races was enough of a reward.

“I like to be active,” she said. “I like to do things to stay healthy, mentally and physically, that’s the key.”

Quick thinking, the availability of an Automatic External Defibrillator machine, and assistance from several community members are being credited for saving the life of a Weed man who collapsed last week at a Siskiyou Land Trust fundraiser.

View First Aid Corps World Map of AED Locations in a larger map

The approximately 100 people who showed up at the Mount Shasta Resort for a slideshow about New Zealand last Wednesday got much more than they bargained for when 83 year old Erv Gross had a heart attack and collapsed to the floor.

“Thank God for the doctors, the defibrillator and the prayers surrounding me,” said 83 year old Erv Gross from his home on Monday, where he’s now doing just fine. “I’ll be forever grateful… and I can’t talk much longer or I’ll start to cry.”

When Gross went down in the crowded room, just as he arrived a few minutes before the presentation began, Peter Mt. Shasta, who was standing nearby, thought he’d banged his head.

“I tried to talk to him, but when he didn’t respond I put my hand on his heart and felt there was no beat and that he had stopped breathing,” Mt. Shasta said.

Doctors Jim Parker and Alan Cohn rushed over and immediately began CPR.

Mount Shasta’s Raven Stevens, who was standing directly behind Gross when he fell, immediately called 911.

Several other people with emergency training and cool heads were also present, including Lon Fitton, who took over chest compressions for Parker when he became exhausted, Neil Posson, Carol Winston, and Rick Demarest.

Demarest said Parker looked up at one point to ask if there was a defibrillator in the house, and he and Stevens went to find one.

“I ran to the front desk to ask if they had a defibrillator, and they did,” Stevens said. She quickly ran back upstairs with the device.

The machine had its own verbal instructions on how to get it working and talked the group through all the steps. After it was charged and Parker got the paddles on, they pressed the button.

“He had no pulse. He wasn’t breathing and was turning blue,” Parker said. “This man was very fortunate to get nearly immediate CPR and shortly thereafter the benefit of the defibrillator.”

Parker said after Gross was shocked with the defibrillator, his heart began beating again on its own, but he still wasn’t breathing. A short while later, he began gasping and his color returned.

A few minutes after Gross began breathing, Parker said emergency crews arrived from the Mount Shasta Fire Protection District and Mt. Shasta Ambulance.

He was taken to Mercy Medical Center Mt. Shasta and then to Mercy Redding.

Cohn said he was glad he could be helpful in such an intense situation.

“I was aware that this was a life and death situation, but at the same time I knew I was doing what I could to help,” he said.

“As a physician, whenever you hear ‘Is there a doctor in the house?’ you have to respond… I’m just glad there were a lot of people there to help,” said Parker.

Both doctors believe the defibrillator saved Gross’s life.

“Two weeks ago, I’d have bet anything I would never have a heart attack,” said Gross, who owns American Stor-n-loc in Weed and has been a Siskiyou County resident since 1979. “I’m an average weight and I eat healthy; I just can’t believe it.”

Parker said he was so impressed with the AED and its detailed instructions, he is looking into purchasing one for his own office. He praised the crowd for its quick thinking and the response of the emergency responders.

Gross will celebrate his 84th birthday next month.