First Aid Corps

It’s a reunion that may have never happened.

“I was just looking at him and it seemed like he just took his last breath and it was like, uhhhh.”

Deanna “Dee” Norflee, never thought she would have to use an Automatic External Defibrillator or an A-E-D. She got training in March on the machine and in November she had to use it.

Bart Skinner the Survivor with Deanna Norflee the Saviour

“I came into the gym and I saw him kneeling over right here in this exact spot,” she says.

Bart Skinner, 55, was just playing basketball on the same hard wood floors LeBron James did when he lived in Akron.

“My buddy’s girlfriend looked at me and said, ‘Bart you don’t look too good,’ and she said I told her I don’t feel good and that’s about all I remember.”

A call to 9-1-1 and the decision to grab the A-E-D saved Skinner’s life.

“When it said press the button we are ready to go,” said Norflee.

Bart was out for three minutes before being treated by the AED.

E-M-S arrived in minutes and took over the situation.

Bart is alive, and well and thankful for AED’s

“I think there a blessing and I’m glad for them and I’m glad I have training on them,” says Skinner.

The life of a gym-goer was saved after he collapsed – in a room full of exercising nurses.

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The heart attack victim was working out at a health club in Fife, accompanied by four nurses, three of whom work in the same ward.

Ciara Grealis the Saviour

As soon as the man collapsed, the nurses sprang in to action, keeping him alive using CPR and a defibrillator until an ambulance arrived.

The patient was then transported to the nurses’ own hospital, Queen Margaret, Dunfermline.

A defibrillator donated to the club seven years ago by a heart charity was used during the emergency at Bannatyne’s Health Club at Fife Leisure Park.

The man, who has not been named, is said to be recovering.

Queen Margaret staff nurse Heather Bryson was having a work-out in the gym with ward colleagues Katharine Sharpe and Ciara Grealis when the man collapsed.

Also in the gym at the time was a fourth nurse from the Queen Margaret and another health professional.

Heather said: “We were all in the gym when we saw the commotion and a lot of people around the man.

“It just so happened that he collapsed and there were five of us at the gym at the time. We all took turns doing CPR. There were loads of people there.

“We used the defibrillator. The sweat was stopping the pads from sticking. He got shocked twice and it probably helped. It was the shock that the paramedic gave him that worked and got him breathing again.

“You replay it over in your head. We’ve talked about it all the time to make sure we did everything we could. It was just a big relief when he made it.

“I went to see him in hospital and he’s doing well. He’s a lucky man.”

Katharine said, “It was good that there were a few of us because one person couldn’t have kept it up alone until the ambulance arrived.

Scott Niven, the club’s general manager, said, “Our team of trained first aiders came to the member’s aid quickly and efficiently and were assisted by a group of members including health care professionals who were very supportive in the time before the ambulance arrived.

“I want to thank these members for their efforts.

“This was a perfect example of the community atmosphere at the health club.

“We wish the gentleman well with his recovery and look forward to welcoming him back to the club.”

A Columbia Falls High School student collapsed after his heart failed earlier this week, but some quick action brought him back to life.

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The 16-year-old student is now recovering in the Intensive Care Unit at Kalispell Regional Medical Center after collapsing during gym class at around 8:30 a.m. Wednesday.

School staff began performing CPR to save his life and then several people, including the athletic trainer and nurse, began using a defibrillator to shock the student and get him breathing.

Three Rivers EMS was on the scene within four minutes and by the time emergency responders got to the student he had a pulse and was breathing on his own.

The student was then taken by ambulance to Kalispell Regional Medical Center and placed in ICU.

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.

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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.”

Teacher Sean King had just popped into the gym to grab a practice defibrillator for the class he was teaching on first aid at Silverthorn Collegiate when he spotted teacher Sharon McConnell cradling a Grade 12 basketball player whose heart had abruptly stopped.

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Suddenly, while his Grade 9 students practiced CPR on “dummies” in the gym next door, King joined McConnell in a life-or-death first-aid drill. In the precious minutes that followed, they used a real defibrillator and CPR to restore the teen’s pulse before emergency crews arrived.

Today the 17-year-old is recovering, although he does not want his name made public.

“The timing was ironic, because I had just been telling my students how important it is to know CPR, especially with the holidays coming up when they visit with elderly relatives,” King said.

McConnell knows first aid from her days as a lifeguard, and began delivering CPR and mouth-to-mouth as shocked students watched. She had been teaching at the Etobicoke school less than two weeks, yet ironically, one of the first classes she had taught was in CPR.

“It’s amazing because the defibrillator tells you exactly what to do, including what rhythm to use when you compress the chest and when to give air,” McConnell said.

Toronto’s Emergency Medical Services has nominated both teachers as well as hall monitor Linda Armstrong and vice-principal Tim Brethour for EMS Citizens’ awards for quick thinking in fetching the defibrillator, calling 911 and delaying the bell between classes so emergency crews could wheel out the stretcher without having to battle crowds.

“In cardiac arrest, seconds count,” noted EMS acting superintendent Shawn Murphy in a letter of praise to school officials. “Had it not been for the rapid and skilled actions of the staff, the outcome would not have been as positive.”