First Aid Corps

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.”

Jamie Alls was playing a weekly game of pick-up basketball with his friends at South Shore School last Tuesday when he started to feel some pain in his chest. At first, he left the gym and sat in the hallway. But one of his friends, Stacy Hilliard, told him to sit inside the gym.

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Moments later, Alls told his friends to call 911.

“Then I laid back and I looked at the ceiling and I was out,” Alls said.

He was in cardiac arrest.

Rob McCann, one of his friends, started chest compressions, something he had not done in years.

“I remember yelling to the guys, ‘Does anybody know how to do this better?’” McCann said.

Alls was quickly fading.

“I actually looked at his face. It was bluish-gray,” said John Santos. “I thought, we may not be able to get him back.”

Then Santos, an employee at South Shore School, remembered that the school recently installed a defibrillator down the hall.

“That’s when it hit me, we’ve got one of those things that’ll fix him,” Santos said. “So I ran and got it.”

The device started talking to the men, giving them instructions before shocking Alls and getting his heart started.

“His color came back right away,” Hilliard said.

Alls remembers hearing the defibrillator’s voice as he woke up.

“I was like, ‘What was that sound?’” he said. “And while I was conscious, it zapped me another time.”

Paramedics arrived moments later and rushed Alls to the hospital. He underwent angioplasty and is expected to make a full recovery.

Seattle Public Schools installed defibrillators in every school, administrative building and at all 15 outside sports fields at the beginning of the school year. The district collaborated with the Heart of Seattle Schools, a non-profit organization that includes the Seattle Seahawks, Sounders, hospitals and Nick of Time Foundation.

“It saved my life,” Alls said. “I’m here to tell you that was saved by that and I just cannot be more grateful for that.”

A local gym attendant is being hailed as a hero for helping to resuscitate an unconscious man who had a heart attack Tuesday while working out on a treadmill.

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Planet Fitness employee Whitni Hendley, 22, of York Beach, Maine, said it was around 6:45 a.m. when a gym patron came running over to the front desk, screaming for her to call 911.

Whitni Hendley the Saviour

The stricken man, a 65-year-old from Rye, was working out at the Lafayette Road location and had gone into cardiac arrest. He was not breathing and had no pulse.

Hendley said she handed off the phone to the panicked patron and put some of the training she learned while attending paramedic school to the test.

What happened next was a blur, said Hendley, but ultimately saved the man’s life.

After running to the back corner of the gym and finding the man on the ground, Hendley said she checked for his pulse, but found nothing. Hendley said she then grabbed an automated external defibrillator and prepared it to deliver a shock.

“People were freaking out,” she said. “I tried to calm everyone down and take care of the guy.”

When the defibrillator read “shocking advised,” Hendley said the seriousness of the situation became more apparent.

“I said, ‘Oh man, this is real now,’” she said. “I made sure everyone was clear, and after he was shocked, I went right into CPR for two minutes. I then reanalyzed him and he had a pulse.”

Another gym patron reportedly assisted Hendley in giving the unknown man CPR.

Having performed a variety of similar training exercises while in paramedic school in Jacksonville, Fla., Hendley said she never before had to use her training.

“It was the first time I had ever done it. It was just me,” she said. “It was pretty exciting.”

Word of Hendley’s life-saving actions has spread throughout the gym community. The news also attracted the attention of city officials, who said that, without her actions, the outcome would’ve been much different.

“This is as real as it gets,” said Assistant Fire Chief Steve Achilles, who visited Hendley at the gym Wednesday.

Achilles said he wanted to meet Hendley to say thank you and congratulate her on her life-saving efforts.

“This is the stuff you read in success stories,” he said.

The assistant fire chief lauded Hendley for having someone else call 911 and for jumping into action. He said the chances of a person surviving a heart attack without CPR or an electric shock is about 10 percent.

“The fact that, after she used the AED and continued to do CPR for a few minutes, he had a pulse is amazing,” Achilles said. “That’s what it’s all about.”

Achilles said paramedics arrived less than five minutes after the 911 call was made. By that time, the man was breathing.

“To go from someone who is clinically dead to someone that is alive is just simply amazing,” he said.

Having an AED in the facility is vitally important and is something Achilles said the fire department is hoping to spread throughout the many businesses in the city. He said having one in the gym facility shows Planet Fitness’ commitment to the health and safety of its members.

“We’re very pleased with the fact that Planet Fitness has trained people and has an AED on site,” Achilles said.

For Hendley, the fact that she just saved a man’s life had yet to set in Wednesday.

“I’m more nervous now than I was yesterday,” she said. “Yesterday, I had about two seconds to get down there, and it was game time. I really didn’t have time for the adrenaline to start pumping.”

A tenth grade student is recovering after his heart stopped during open gym Wednesday.

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The student collapsed and his heart had stopped beating. Three of the district’s coaches, one of whom is a teacher, used an automated external defibrillator to bring back the student’s heartbeat, according to a statement from the district.

The student was transported to the hospital for testing and observation, according to the statement.

“The quick actions and combined efforts of our district coaches saved the student’s life,” wrote Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Lauren Hunter in the statement. “For that, we are grateful for their heroism and the emergency training they received through the district.”