First Aid Corps

Gary Fratus, who celebrated his 52nd birthday last week, was loading trucks for his North Main Street heating and air conditioning business around 8 a.m. July 1 when he collapsed because of a cardiac arrhythmia.

His son, Scott, ran next door to the North Randolph fire station for help.

The shift was changing at the time, and the five firefighters inside rushed to the man’s aid, grabbing the emergency medical equipment from the department’s Engine 4.

Firefighter/paramedic Thomas Binnall, the department’s emergency medical coordinator, said when firefighters reached the elder Fratus, he “was not breathing and had no pulse.”

Gary Fratus said he was told “I was clinically dead.”

Binnall said firefighters used a defibrillator to administer a single shock, restoring Fratus’ pulse before the ambulance arrived to take him to Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton.

“It’s a miracle that it happened,” Scott Fratus said. “Every single doctor said the same thing, ‘You don’t know how lucky you are.’”

It was Friday afternoon at the Hampton Inn on Lee Burbank Highway, a lazy summer Friday.

An alarm had gone off at the hotel in error, and firefighters had responded around 4:30 p.m. and quickly determined it was nothing of concern.

As they were leaving though, Capt. Glen Rich and Firefighter Tony DiGiovanni noticed a woman in distress in the lobby.

She was having chest pains, but told firefighters to leave her alone and she’d be fine.

Seconds later she collapsed and went into full cardiac arrest.

The two firefighters immediately hit the floor, performing CPR as the woman slipped closer and closer to death.

The rest of the Engine 4 crew, under the direction of Deputy Chief Jim Cullen, quickly retrieved a defibrillator unit from the engine and brought it to aid Rich and DiGiovanni.

Time was running out as they hooked the woman up to the unit.

The automated unit immediately flashed a command to shock the woman ASAP.

They charged the defibrillator unit. They applied a massive shock to the woman.

She immediately sat up and gasped for air, clinging back to a life she nearly lost.

The firefighters also gasped, breathing a sigh of relief as it hit them that they had just saved the woman’s life.

Cataldo Ambulance transported the woman to the Mass General in Boston, where she received further treatment.

“This woman was extremely fortunate that things played out the way they did,” said Chief Gene Doherty. “It was only coincidence that we were there for the alarm when she went into cardiac arrest. It was a real good save and extremely lucky that we were there at that exact moment.”

The chief commended the entire Engine 4 and Ladder 1 crews for an extremely well-executed job.

Mount Airy fire engineer Scotty Wolfe Wolfe had just finished his shift and was running errands when he heard the 911 operator dispatch crews to a job site on Oak Grove Church Road.

Scotty Wolfe the Saviour, Ron Haynes the Survivor

When Wolfe arrived, he found a man lying on the ground who wasn’t breathing and had no pulse, so he began CPR.

A few minutes later, when someone said the man’s name, Wolfe realized he was trying to revive his lifelong friend, Ron Haynes.

“My heart sunk a little bit. My adrenaline rose, and I just kept working,” Wolfe said.

Workers witnessed Haynes, 34, fall to the ground after being electrocuted when he tried to plug in a fan to dry newly poured concrete.

After 12 minutes of performing CPR, a shock to Haynes’ heart from a defibrillator brought him back to life.

“I was an emotional wreck. I cried,” Wolfe said as the ambulance raced his friend to Wake Forest Baptist University Medical Center.

Wolfe said he was scared Haynes might not make it. “I could see his little boy like mine growing up without a father,” said Wolfe.

Haynes described what happened a miracle and said he’s thankful to have such a great friend.

“I told him if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be here that’s for sure, ” said Haynes.

A leak from a propane barbecue grill sparked some trouble in Middle Valley.

The homeowner called 911 and then used a hose to snuff out the flames that spread to his deck. Dallas Bay volunteer firefighters arrived a few minutes later to finish the job.

Once things cooled down the homeowner and firefighters were outside talking about the fire when the homeowner collapsed, falling flat on his face. He stopped breathing and went into cardiac arrest.

As Hamilton County paramedics were called to the scene firefighters immediately began CPR and grabbed their automated external defibrillator.

“They pulled the automated external defibrillator and used it on this patient in the first two minutes which actually saved this gentleman’s life,” Amy Maxwell, spokesperson for Hamilton County Emergency Services said.

As the AED literally talked the firefighters through a life-saving process, and shocked the man’s heart, he started breathing again.

“It just so happens it was just a lucky turn of events that Dallas Bay was actually there when this gentleman went down at the time,” Maxwell said.

The victim is recovering at Erlanger Medical Center and we’re told he will have surgery in the next day or so to correct some blockages in his heart that he didn’t even know he had.

Steve Cartagena walked up the stairs to the Port of Friday Harbor office so he could pay his moorage. It was July 1. He woke up four days later, on July 5, at St. Joseph Hospital in Bellingham.

View World Map on AED Locations in a larger map

What he doesn’t remember is his heart stopping and his lifeless body rolling down the flight of 15 stairs. And eight people carrying him up the stairs and summoning help. And Assistant Harbormaster Jeremy Talbott — who is also a volunteer firefighter and EMT — getting his heart going again. And the ambulance arriving, and the medflight to St. Joseph.

“I should be dead,” Cartagena said.

Steve Cartagena the Survivor

Cartagena and his daughter, Kayla, are thankful that he wasn’t alone on his boat when his heart stopped. And they are thankful that about eight people were nearby when his heart stopped, and carried him to the port office and summoned help.

“He’s pretty lucky. He was right where he needed to be,” Kayla said.

But they are particularly thankful for Talbott’s quickness and know-how that got Cartagena’s heart going within three minutes of stopping. With cardiac arrest, brain injury is likely if it goes untreated for more than five minutes.

Cartagena says Talbott saved his life.

“He got to me quick. He should be commended,” Cartagena said. The former combat Marine, who lost much of his hearing during a tour in North Vietnam from 1968-69, teared up when he talked about how precarious life is. “I’m kind of emotional right now.”

“Jeremy was on the spot instantly,” Port Executive Director Marilyn O’Connor said. “I have never witnessed something like that first hand. It was overwhelming. The response was so professional and so immediate.” Of Talbott and the other medical responders, O’Connor said, “They did save his life.”

O’Connor said the incident has compelled her to learn CPR and first aid. “We need to go out there and have more CPR and first aid training.”

Cartagena, 60, said his heart was giving him warning signs about a month earlier. He said he had aching and pain in his arms and saw a Veterans Administration doctor about it. “They ignored it,” he said. “They told me to take two aspirins and call EMTs.”

That couldn’t be confirmed with VA. What is known, however, is that Cartagena’s heart was about 85 percent blocked. Doctors at St. Joe’s got his blood flowing with stents.

Ben Parsons, 30, a full-time firefighter and paramedic for the Whitefish Fire Department, traveled to Blodgett, Ore., for the annual Test of Endurance race on Father’s Day.

He finished strong at the race (11th out of 240 racers on the 50-mile course with 8,200 feet of climbing) and was headed back to his truck to clean up when a friend noticed flames “licking up uncomfortably close” to the awning of a nearby home.

They quickly discovered a flaming barbecue grill sitting on a wood porch attached to the house.

“Unbelievably, there was no one home and no hoses in the yard,” Parsons recalled in a first-person account he wrote about the incident, so he told his friend to run up the street where a firefighter with the Blodgett Volunteer Fire Department was operating a tender for racers to clean up their bikes.

Parsons said he grudgingly called 911, “knowing that we’d most likely get this taken care of before another engine showed up.

Parsons, who still was unwinding from the grueling race, thought everything was under control when his friend called him over again, this time to the fire truck.

Parsons realized the firefighter had collapsed and was in cardiac arrest.

When he found the man had no pulse, he put his paramedic skills into play and asked his friend to make a second 911 call, this time with news that a firefighter had coded.

Parsons “cranked away” on CPR to resuscitate the man while the dispatcher on the 911 line kept asking questions.

Within a couple of minutes an elderly woman arrived on scene with an automated external defibrillator and an airway kit. It was the firefighter’s wife, Parsons soon realized.

He successfully resuscitated the man, had him take some aspirin and made sure the firefighter had stable vitals before handing him off as the medics showed up.

The Blodgett firefighter underwent surgery that night. He called Parsons three days ago to thank him for his help, and informed him he’d had bypass surgery and now has a pacemaker and defibrillator.

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.

Lt. Jamie Hicks told the Chesterton Tribune today that at 1:24 p.m. the CFD was dispatched to the bowling alley Westchester Lanes at 124 N. Eighth St.—just around the corner from the fire house—in response to a report of a full cardiac arrest.

On firefighters’ arrival, a woman whom Hicks identified as the owner’s wife and a nurse was already administering CPR to the victim, a retirement-aged gentleman.

“We took over CPR and then applied the AED,” Hicks said. “We shocked him two times. Then we did more CPR.”

“By the time EMS got to the scene and we loaded the man into the ambulance, he was talking and breathing,” Hicks said.

Hicks also gave full credit to the nurse on the scene. “Early CPR, early defibrillation, that’s the key to saving people,” he said.

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.

On the evening of Wednesday, May 19, 2010, Todd Witte was at Country Lanes Volleyball Courts in the midst of a game with his team.

In an instant, Todd collapsed and suffered cardiac arrest.

At 8:48 p.m., the Duluth Fire Department No. 7 Engine stationed in Duluth Heights responded to a report of a “48 year old unconscious male”.

While in route to the scene, the Fire Department crew was informed by another call that the patient had stopped breathing but CPR was in progress.

Within three minutes, No. 7 Engine arrived at the scene to find Ms. Greensky and Mr. Kiesel performing CPR.

Duluth firefighters used their semi-automatic external defibrillator to administer a shock to Todd.

After a single shock was delivered, both individuals continued assisting with CPR.

Shortly after delivery of the shock, and continued CPR, Todd began to breathe on his own and partially regained consciousness.

Todd was taken by ambulance to the hospital and underwent surgery.

Today, Todd Witte is doing well and grateful to the two people who gave him another chance to enjoy life with his loving wife and kids.