First Aid Corps

A Twillingate man says he’d be dead were it not for a defibrillator that he arranged to have installed at the local arena.

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

Dave Stuckey was playing recreational hockey at the George Hawkins Memorial Arena earlier this month when he experienced chest pains.

Two doctors on his team advised him to go to the hospital, and one of them left to get his truck so he could drive Stuckey there.

Dave Stuckey the Survivor

While Stuckey was waiting for the doctor to return, he went to the washroom where he passed out.

Stuckey said he later found out his heart had stopped for 10 to 15 minutes.

“I was totally dead. There was no pulse,” he said.

He was also told his hockey buddies and the doctors sprung into action.

“Someone went and got it [the defibrillator] for the doctors,” Stuckey continued. “Two of the players there was doing CPR before the doctor got back. So they proceeded with the CPR and they got the defib all hooked up and started shocking me. I was shocked six times.”

Stuckey only regained consciousness a couple of hours later, in an ambulance on the way to Gander. He was then airlifted to St. John’s, where doctors put a stent in his blocked artery.

In a twist of fate, Stuckey, who also happens to be the Twillingate arena’s manager, said he arranged for the defibrillator to be installed about two-and-a-half years ago.

“I got a call from Heart and Stroke. They were at the time doing this, putting defibs into areas. They contacted me, I presented it to the town, and from there we got it.”

“Jokingly, when we put the defib in there, I went to the town manager and I said, ‘I’ll probably be the first one that it has to be used on,’ just as a joke,” said Stuckey. “But it was me that it had to be used on.”
Government funded project

Stuckey, who turns 50 next week, said he feels like he got a second chance at life.

He believes defibrillators should be installed in all public buildings.

“You don’t pick a place to have a heart attack, right?” said Stuckey. ”’I can’t have one [a heart attack] here because there’s no defib,’ you know what I mean?”

It was just a regular Sunday pickup game of hockey.

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

Gary Smits, 47, wasn’t even supposed to be playing that December morning. He’d been called in as a sub.

Teammate Dale Blanchard had also been called in at the last minute — a stroke of luck that would prove a lifesaver for Smits, a technology and co-op teacher at Medway high school.

Gary Smits the Survivor & Dale Blanchard the Saviour

After 50 minutes on the ice, Smits felt a little bit of chest discomfort, maybe a little bit hotter than usual. He chalked it up to hard game-play.

As he skated back onto the ice, though, “the lights went out. The next thing I remember was them loading me into the ambulance.”

Smits had had a heart attack.

Blanchard, an off-duty Middlesex-London EMS paramedic, grabbed the nearby defibrillator and teammates began performing CPR after calling 911. Their quick actions likely saved Smit’s life.

Doctors told Smits one of his arteries was 78% blocked. Now, nearly two months after Smits’ ordeal, Middlesex-London EMS, which works with the Heart and Stroke Foundation to distribute free defibrillators to public facilities, wants to give Medway high school a free machine.

No thanks, says Thames Valley district school board. The free machine isn’t one of two models the board has approved for use in its schools, so it’s turning it down. Smits is still off work, hoping to be medically cleared to go back in March.

During the offseason, like so many other NHL and AHL players, Brett MacLean gets back to his roots and plays hockey locally. There’s a group of guys in Owen Sound with whom the 23-year-old Phoenix Coyotes forward has played twice a week every July and August since he was in junior hockey.

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

Last week, they saved his life.

During a game at Regional Rec Center, MacLean collapsed suddenly onto the ice. The other players reacted, at first, like MacLean was pulling a gag, joking about it as he was sprawled on the frozen surface.

Brett MacLean the Survivor

Then MacLean started to convulse. He was going into cardiac arrest.

Players Jason Gallagher and Jason Silverthorn began CPR on MacLean.

“It’s not easy performing CPR on someone you know very well and not knowing the outcome,” said Gallagher, who has taken CPR classes at least 10 times, to the Calgary Sun.

Jay Forslund, an off-duty firefighter, called the police and sought out the automated external defibrillator into the Regional Rec Center. Three minutes after he collapsed, his heart was shocked. When the paramedics arrived, they administered two more shocks. MacLean’s pulse had returned in eight minutes.

He was airlifted to University Hospital in London, and was moved out of intensive care late last week.

“We’re eternally grateful to them,” Karen MacLean told the Owen Sound Sun Times. “Absolutely there’s no question, his outcome is partially related to his good health and his strong fit body, but also because of the attention by the bystanders, the defibrillator machine and the ambulance.”

She thanked Gallagher when he visited MacLean in the hospital.

“Remarkable, a miracle. No other word to describe it. The last time I saw him, he had no vital signs and we were performing CPR on him. And within a few days he’s walking around and shaking my hand,” Gallagher told the Sun Times last week.

“I can’t emphasize how incredible it is what our medical professionals are able to do, because literally on Monday night, he had no vital signs, and this is Friday morning and he’s up walking around. I’m still in awe.”

Ron Amedeo, a 34-year-old father of twin 4-year-olds, skated backward toward his team’s goalie and fell to the ice. A few players from the previous game stood behind the glass, casually watching and shooting the breeze.

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

Amedeo lay just to the right of goalie Shane Powers. The goalie waved and yelled to his brother, Council Bluffs chiropractor Cory Powers, who was one of those behind the glass. He hustled onto the ice through a nearby gate, followed by Tim Brady, a hockey player and nurse anesthetist at Creighton University Medical Center.

Tim Brady & Cory Powers the Saviours

Amedeo lay on his face and stomach.

Cory Powers and Brady first thought Amedeo had suffered a concussion or neck injury. Shane Powers, the goalie, knew better. He had seen how Amedeo had fallen, face first and limp, without having been hit or contacted in any way, before he slid across the ice and come to a stop near the goalie.

Shane Powers yelled for the defibrillator, which is usually called an AED. Someone called 911.

Dr. Jim Hammel, who played for the other team, skated over from the bench. He, like just about everyone else, thought Amedeo had been accidentally struck with a stick or knocked to the ice.

Hockey players and others gathered around Amedeo. They carefully rolled him onto his back. It grew quiet. Brady and Cory Powers still believed he had suffered a neck injury or concussion. They stabilized his neck.

Hammel got involved after a few seconds when Amedeo remained unconscious.

They put their fingers to his neck and pressed his wrist to check his pulse. Amedeo almost seemed to snore. Then his breath became shallow.

When his color began to turn bluish-purple, everyone knew Amedeo was in trouble.

Brady put his mouth to Amedeo’s and breathed a couple breaths. Shane Powers, who at one time was an emergency medical technician, began to attach the AED patches to Amedeo’s chest.

Hammel, a heart surgeon at Children’s Hospital & Medical Center and transplant surgeon at the Nebraska Medical Center, moved the left patch a bit higher on Amedeo’s chest.

The AED whined into shock mode and everyone moved back. The shock came, jolting Amedeo’s entire body.

Men placed hockey gloves under Amedeo’s head.

Hammel started chest compressions. Amedeo had a pulse and his normal skin color began to return. His eyes remained closed.

Everyone felt relieved when the Omaha Fire Department arrived with its EMTs, who put a neck brace on Amedeo, placed him on a backboard, got him on a stretcher and headed for the Nebraska Medical Center.

The players stood on the ice, dazed. Some hadn’t been that nervous while the incident unfolded, but then they were left to their thoughts. … They chose not to resume the game.

Amedeo’s kids were watching TV as their mom, Jeanie Amedeo, washed dishes. She received a text that her husband had suffered a medical crisis and been taken to the hospital.

She hurried to the emergency room and held his hand. She is sure he opened his eyes for a bit. In the intensive care unit that night, personnel asked her what to do if his condition declined.

Doctors thought her husband would be on a ventilator for a couple days, but that night they were able to take him off it. “Ron is very strong,” his wife said.

Hammel thought about whether Amedeo’s brain had been denied oxygen too long and whether he would be OK. Cory Powers woke up in the night, wondering if they could have done something better and if they had done enough.

Amedeo’s heart had an arrhythmia, evidently because of scar tissue that had built up for unknown reasons. Doctors implanted a device to automatically jolt his heart if it loses its rhythm. He spent a few nights in the hospital and soon resumed light-duty work at his job at a data center.

“I feel better,” he said recently. He remembered nothing of the episode.

The Amedeos figure that the AED and the fast, skilled work of the guys saved his life. “My family is grateful,” Amedeo said. “I am too. But my biggest worry would be not being around for my family.”

A man collapsed on the ice Monday night while playing recreational hockey at Twin Rinks in St. John’s, and an automated external defibrillator (AED) is being credited with keeping him alive.

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

“Without that, I don’t think there would have been a chance in hell,” said Dr. Randy Smith, who happened to be in the building at the time and who gave him CPR.

It’s unclear exactly what happened to the man. Second-hand accounts say he was reaching for the puck when he suddenly collapsed onto the ice.

As of Tuesday afternoon he was in stable condition in hospital. Doctors were keeping him in a coma as they monitored his condition.

When contacted by The Telegram the man’s family asked that he not be identified.

However, the family did want to pass along their heartfelt thanks to the people who worked hard to save him.

“We do really appreciate everyone that had helped out. Because right now we probably wouldn’t be where we’re at (if not for them). We’d probably be somewhere else — you know what I mean?” said the man’s spouse.

She also provided the update on his condition and said the family was holding up all right under the circumstances.

“He’s not out of the woods, but we’ll just take it one day at a time. There’s lots of prayers being said and all that,” she said.

One of the first things she was told upon arriving at the hospital was that the use of the AED likely kept her husband alive long enough to get to the hospital.

“Without the defibrillator I don’t think he would be here,” she said.

Smith agrees.

A physician for more than 30 years, 15 of which were spent working in the St. Clare’s Mercy Hospital emergency room, Smith was watching junior hockey in the rink opposite to where the man collapsed. The time was between 9:30 and 10 p.m.

“Just out of the blue, this gentleman, this massive big man, comes bouldering through the door … shouting ‘is there anybody here who knows CPR?” recalled Smith.

Answering the call for help, he made his way out onto the ice. The man was flat on his back as Smith checked his vital signs.

He was not drawing breath, and if his heart was beating it was so weak Smith could barely feel it.

He started CPR, compressing the man’s chest as one of the players, still dressed in his gear, provided breath.

This went on for a couple of minutes before one of the Twin Rinks staff fetched one of the two AEDs in the facility.

Between the rink staffer, Smith and the hockey player, the AED was used and the man’s heart started a very faint beat.

They kept up CPR for several more minutes until paramedics arrived and rushed the unconscious man to hospital.

Smith explained that he’s used thousands of defibrillators throughout his career but this was the first time he’d used an automatic one.

Thinking about the Twin Rinks situation in hindsight, he heaped praise on the devices.

“It certainly gives credit to the people who worked so hard to get these things in stadiums,” he said.