First Aid Corps

But during a May 25th meeting of a firefighters advisory group at the Brighton Fire Station, Felix Conigilo, a 30 year veteran and past chief with the Kenmore Volunteer Fire Department, suffered a heart attack right in front of his friends and colleagues including Assistant Kenmore Chief Todd Bieron.

As Felix blacked out and started slumping, Todd and others helped him to the floor.

Some started CPR with chest compressions while others called 911 and ran to grab the Automatic Emergency Defibrillator which is stored at the station.

Chief Bieron says he had to collect himself as he looked at his friend but he attached the device and delivered a life saving shock to re-start Felix’s heart.

Felix was revived as he felt other firefighters performing CPR.

Felix Conigilo says doctors at ECMC told him that all the firefighters and paramedics saved his life with the help of the AED.

Ironically Coniglio was the Kenmore chief when they got their first AED and thought it was just an overpriced piece of equipment that they probably didn’t need.

Coniglio is doing fine now with an implanted pacemaker and defibrillator.

Retired paramedic Anthony Edison, off-duty firefighters Paul Fudge and Darrell Dalley and respiratory technician Gina Andrews were attending a social event on Dec. 4, 2009 at the local fire station with colleagues and friends when one of the guests suddenly collapsed.

Paul Fudge, Anthony Edison, Gina Andrew & Darrell Dalley the Saviours

Mr. Edison said he was chatting with Augustus Lewis, a retired fire captain in his early 80s, when “all of sudden, he just dropped to the floor. So, I got down there and started an assessment on him and found that he had no pulse, no respirations and with that we started CPR (cardio-respiratory resuscitation).”

Mr. Edison then told the duty fire officer in the radio room to call for an ambulance. He said a defibrillator and oxygen were taken off one of the fire trucks, an airway tube was inserted and Andrews took over the respirations.

Mr. Fudge took control of the defibrillator, and Mr. Edison and Mr. Dalley took turns doing chest compressions.

“We worked on him, Paul got a shock in on him and we got him back from there,” Mr. Edison said.

“It felt wonderful,” he said, when they realized they had saved his life. Mr. Edison said Mr. Lewis has since had an internal defibrillator implanted in his chest and is doing well. “He just got back from two weeks in Cuba, so it worked out good,” he said.

Mr. Fudge said he felt good after the experience, especially since it was someone they all knew. “If you’re going to have a heart attack, that’s the place to have one,” at the firehall, he joked.

Mr. Dalley said knowing that MR. Lewis was doing well days after the event was a great feeling.

Ms. Andrews said she also felt wonderful, but is used to doing this type of thing every day, “just not out of the hospital” where she works as a respiratory technician.

We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore.

Arthur Roebuck (sitted) Saved

Arthur Roebuck, a Cohasset caterer who has served royalty, was choking on a cracker in the back seat of his son’s car. That’s the last he remembers about his brush with death. 

Roebuck, 76, his wife, Veneta, 76, and their son, Sam, were returning from a funeral reception. Sam was driving; Roebuck was talking in the back seat.

“I heard my husband making these God-awful sounds, and I thought he was joking,” Veneta said. “I turned to say, ‘Stop kidding around,’ and he was gagging, fighting for breath.” On Dec. 17, Roebuck had a heart attack in front of the West Quincy fire station.

Sam had just passed the firehouse; he made a U-turn and began banging on its front door. Police officer Barry DeFranco, parked in a cruiser, jumped out to help. Inside, Arienti, Lt. Steve Infascelli, 50, of Norwell, and Firefighter Edward Nardone of Quincy heard banging and ran to open the front door.

“We saw a car with the door open and a man lying on the ground,” Arienti says. “He was ashen. We grabbed our medical kits; he had no pulse. The defibrillator said, ‘Don’t shock him.’ The firefighters did chest compressions on Roebuck for about five minutes, keeping blood moving throughout his body.

“That brought him back enough so he had a pulse, a recognizable heart rhythm,” Arienti said. “We used the defibrillator to restore a regular rhythm and the second we shocked him, he started fighting us. You could see his will to live was strong.”

“I got really lucky,” he said, home after receiving intensive care in a Boston hospital and rehabbing at the Norwell Knoll Nursing Home.

A few weeks later, the three firefighters were talking in the station, wondering how Roebuck was, when the phone rang. Roebuck’s daughter, Amy, 48, was calling to say thank you.

Roebuck visited the fire station last week to give his personal thanks.

“It’s just amazing – the timing and the skills that are there, that people don’t think about,” he said. “Here’s an old guy who has a heart attack, gets hauled out of his car, gets pounded, gets the old heart going again and continues on.”