First Aid Corps

Back in August, Karen Henderson, a Walmart employee noticed two shoplifters leaving the Miami Gardens store and she ran after them into the parking lot to retrieve the items.

On her way back to the store she collapsed.

Fortunately, Sgt. Jorge Yero, an off duty Miami Dade officer, was working nearby and ran to get his defibrillator.

Yero shocked her twice, started chest compressions, and eventually Henderson began to breathe again.

“I wasn’t thinking,” said Sgt. Yero. “I was just doing what we are trained to do and thank God I had the AED with me and I was at the right time at the right place.”

Henderson has no memory of the whole ordeal. All she remembers is a dream in which she saw long lost relatives at her childhood home.

“The door was cracked and there was this sunset light,” recalled Henderson. “The light drew me to the room and when I went to the room, I went to push the door open and the door closed back.”

She said her grandmother and other relatives told her to go home and that’s when she woke up and returned to life. Despite the ordeal, Henderson said she’s eager to return to work.

“If I could I would,” she said. “I don’t have no regrets no regrets thousands and thousands of shoplifters, I have no regrets.”

Ellen Davis, a 69-year-old Zillah grandmother and substitute schoolteacher, collapsed about 6 a.m in West Valley Walmart on Nov. 27, the busy shopping day known as Black Friday.

Almost immediately she was surrounded by help.

Off-duty nurses and firefighters who were shopping, a police officer working store security and Walmart employees all pitched in.

Some of them performed CPR.

They kept Davis alive until the ambulance arrived nine minutes later.

Her heart was revived with an electric shock en route to Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital.

One worker ran to fetch a first aid kit while other workers formed a human chain to give the rescue workers room to move.

Stephanie Pruett, a Walmart employee who performed the first chest compressions on Davis.

Some of the rescuers include :

Sgt. Mike Henne of the Yakima Police Department, who was working as private security for Walmart and performed CPR.

Tara Prescott, an off-duty Memorial Hospital registered nurse who performed CPR.

Ed Vertrees, an off-duty Yakima Training Center firefighter who performed CPR.

Sara Wisner, an off-duty registered nurse, who helped keep Davis’ airway open during CPR and helped ambulance workers keep a tight seal on a respirator bag.

As far as she can tell, Davis has fully recovered from the incident, though she has a stent in her heart and her family teases her about brain damage.

“I am just about normal as far as that goes, but that’s not saying a lot,” she said with a laugh.

She appreciated all her rescuers’ efforts, but they didn’t surprise her.

“A lot of people, more than you realize, are willing to help people in any way they can,” Davis said.

Judy Mims still doesn’t recall what happened on Nov. 16, 2008, but she was on her way to Sunday school where she teaches at First Baptist Church on Mills Avenue.

Judy Mims the Survivor

Brown and her twin sister, Shirley Hackett, think that Mims stopped at Target on Kettleman Lane to get some cold medicine because she wasn’t feeling well.

She was in the restroom when she collapsed, Brown said. A customer, also in the restroom, heard a crashing noise, left the restroom and told an employee, who called 9-1-1.

AMR paramedics revived Mims with a defibrillator before taking her to Lodi Memorial Hospital. Doctors thought she wouldn’t make it through the night. Before the night was over, she was transferred to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Stockton.

“I have no memory at all of what happened,” Mims said. “I don’t know why I went to Target.”

“I realized I was at St. Joseph’s, but I didn’t realize the magnitude of how serious it was,” Mims said.

It was a long stage of rehabilitation, with both of Mims’ sisters staying with her for seven months.

One recent exciting day for Mims was July 28, when she returned to her classroom, where she teaches a fifth-grade Gifted and Talented Education class.

Mims said she has a class of good students who don’t cause her much stress, but she makes an extra effort to not subject herself to stress.

Off the clock and nearly out the door of the Fishers Wal-Mart, Sgt. Darrin Emmons couldn’t ignore yelling in the produce isle.

I ran over and saw that there was a gentleman on the ground and he appeared unconscious and he was turning blue,” said Sgt. Darrin Emmons.

Two women started CPR. Sgt. Emmons bolted to his car. Like all Fishers police officers, he is equipped with an Automatic External Defibrillator.

“It did a read out on him and advised to shock, and it delivered a shock to the guy and it appeared that he started breathing,” said Sgt. Emmons.

Wendell Hunsucker the Survivor

Within seconds, shock waves jolted 80-year-old Wendell Hunsucker.

Now recovering after a week in the hospital, Hunsucker has heard all about his revival.

“I don’t remember anything,” said Hunsucker.

“It shows you have guardian angels. That’s what I would say. I had somebody looking after me,” he said.

“If it hadn’t been for Sgt. Emmons, “I wouldn’t be talking to you. That’s for sure.”

Hunsucker also gives the women who performed CPR on him a lot of credit. One of them an occupational therapist who lives in Fishers. But mainly he hopes this will prompt stores and businesses to keep a portable AED on site for emergencies.

“I will never be able to thank the people that helped me out,” he said. “Everything went my way. I been trying to win that damn lottery for 25 years. I guess I finally won it. I got my life back.”

A 38-YEAR-OLD man whose heart stopped is alive and in hospital, thanks to a built-in defibrillator in the Madrid shopping centre he was visiting.

A security guard in La Vaguada mall in the city’s Pilar district says he was automatically alerted when the man attempted to use the machine.

He then rushed to his aid and applied the defibrillator, which sends electric shocks through the heart to re-start it.

Public buildings all over Spain began to install defibrillators at the end of 2007 after the sudden death of Sevilla footballer Antonio Puerta from a cardiac arrest.

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

83 year old Jack Folkins of Annapolis was with his wife, Margaret, in front of the Starbucks near the JCPenney store just before 4:30 p.m. when he had the attack and collapsed on a sofa, according to mall security and county Fire Department officials.

The mall’s security team, of Professional Security Consultants, was alerted to the medical emergency and officers stationed throughout the mall quickly sprang into action, said Sgt. David McMullen, a supervisor of the mall security crew.

Officers Hasan Nazzel and Ian Preuss ran to the customer-service counter in front of Lord & Taylor and grabbed a first-aid kit and one of three defibrillators at the mall, McMullen said.

They ran to Starbucks, where they joined McMullen and Officers Jamie Schmidt and James Millsap as they assisted Folkins, who was not breathing and did not have a pulse.

Courtney McCluskey, a physician who works for Franklin Square Hospital, was walking through the mall when she heard screams for help and ran to help. She and Folkins’ wife were already doing CPR when the security officers arrived, McMullen said. McCluskey was performing chest compressions on Folkins and his wife was breathing into his mouth.

Meanwhile, a large crowd was forming around Folkins.

As the officers cleared onlookers, McMullen placed the defibrillator on Folkins’ chest.

“I analyzed his body - then the (defibrillator) advised me to give him a shock,” he said. “At that point he wasn’t breathing and he didn’t have a pulse, either. I reanalyzed him, and another shock was not advised. I told the doctor to continue compressions and I gave him two full breaths.”

Soon after, Folkins regained consciousness and began breathing normally, McMullen said.

Paramedics arrived about a minute later to take over Folkins’ treatment.

“It was quite a miracle that he survived,” Folkins said, adding that her husband is at Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., awaiting heart surgery. “Everything was just beautifully done, and I feel like I have two angels on my shoulders.”

McMullen said the rescue was “an amazing experience.”

“This is my first life-saving experience since I’ve been here for four years,” he said.

“I’m very grateful for all of the people who helped us,” Margaret Folkins said Saturday. “I did the best I could under the circumstances, but they were absolutely wonderful - both the two ladies who came in as strangers and attended to us, and then also the security force at the mall.”

“They all used the training that they’ve received and acted in a very quick and smart manner,” he said. “I couldn’t be any more proud of them if they were my own sons.”

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

Ron Hawkins the Survivor

“I was with my son-in-law Steve and we were going to meet my daughter Jane who works in John Lewis in the Touchwood Centre,” recalls Ron of Stechford.

“I remember getting out of the car and walking towards the shop and then I don’t remember anything else. Apparently I was standing there outside the coffee shop and I suddenly collapsed and hit my head on the floor. People have said there was blood everywhere because I split my head open.”

Fortunately for Ron there were two doctors who happened to be shopping in the centre – Dr Sharon Chadwick, originally from Solihull but now working in Hertfordshire, and Dr Chris Stockdale, a retired GP from Shirley who is still a practitioner at Birmingham’s Heartlands Hospital.

Dr Stockdale was about to buy a sandwich when the drama unfolded just outside the coffee shop.

“Someone came in and asked if I could help because a man had collapsed,” he recalls. “When I saw him he was lying on the floor and there was a lot of blood as he had cut his head.”

“I thought he was dead. He was blue.”

“My father was standing near to where the gentleman fell and he came and got me immediately,” recalls Dr Chadwick. “By the time I got there the retired GP was already there. We began immediate heart compressions and then staff from the centre arrived with a mask and a defibrillator.”

“I started but I felt what we were doing was fruitless. The Touchwood staff brought the defibrillator and after a couple of shocks he went from being an ashen purple colour to pink.”

“In all my years of medical history it was one of the most incredible things. I actually felt I was watching a miracle. He had seemed dead and then he started breathing again.”

Ron was taken by ambulance to Solihull Hospital before being transferred to Heartlands Hospital where he spent nine weeks undergoing tests. A decision was then made that he would undergo a double heart by-pass.

Now undergoing regular monitoring, he is nonetheless a relatively fit and healthy 82-year-old who enjoys getting out and about.

“They said that when I collapsed I died,” he says. “It was the people there with a defibrillator who brought me back to life. I am very very lucky to be alive now. If those people had not been there to help me I should have died.”

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

At around 4:50 p.m. on Friday, police responded to Stop & Shop Plaza on Cranberry Highway for reports of a person who had fallen and was not breathing.

Sgt. John Walcek and Officers Bryan Whalen and Christopher Smith were the first on the scene and immediately administered CPR and delieverd two shocks from their automated external defibrillator before an ambulance arrived.

The victim, Paul Almond, 76, of Bourne, was breathing and had a pulse when EMS personnel arrived.

He was taken to Tobey Hospital, but was no longer listed as a patient by Saturday morning.

Wareham firefighter Scott Drum and Officer Mike Smith assisted at the scene.

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

Santa the Saviour

Santa — a.k.a. Ken Mandeno — helped save a woman’s life after she had a heart attack in the lobby of Hamilton Place after a Geritol Follies performance.

The retired steel worker was mingling with the audience after the show when the woman collapsed. Mandeno stepped in because he had just taken a first-aid course last month at the Glanford Curling Club, where he learned how to use the device.

Beth Burley, who works with the Geritol Follies, was at the merchandise table in the lobby when she saw the woman fall to the ground. Burley was monitoring the woman’s heartbeat when Mandeno brought the defibrillator over.

“A lot went through my head before I pushed that button,” said the retired Steel worker. “It wasn’t really scary, but it was like running into unknown territory.”

“Imagine seeing Santa Claus come sweeping in to save the day, Burley said. “It was very Miracle on 34th Street.”

Dunn, Burley and Mandeno continued to monitor the woman until paramedics showed up.

“I don’t feel I’m entitled to any glory,” he said. “Hopefully the action I took saved her.”

“The last I heard, she’s doing well.”

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

The couple usually goes to Highland Mall most morning at 10 a.m., as the mall is opening, 68-year-old Dixie Mix said. On Nov. 3, she and her husband were walking inside the mall when she went ahead to do a lap by herself. Paul Mix stayed behind to take his medicine. When she approached the Aeropostale store, where she’d left him, she’d noticed that he wasn’t there.

A store employee saw Paul fall, Dixie Mix said. “By the time I got back to him, his heart and lungs were still working, but he just said, ‘I need down,’ and collapsed,” she said.

Mall security Captain Criselda Ozuna and security officer Jamael Jackson rushed to the couple’s side. Ozuna performed CPR and Jackson helped with the defibrillator, Dixie Mix said. By the time paramedics arrived, officials said, mall employees had done much of the work of reviving Mix.

“How do you thank somebody for returning what could have been lost when it is everything?” Dixie Mix said. She referred to Ozuna and Jackson as “two angels.”

“It was wonderful to have so many people who cared so much. You always hear about the bad an I was tickled to death this is the good,” said Dixie Mix, wife.

“You have to ask yourself, ‘What is my next heartbeat worth?’,” Rodriguez said. “This is a perfect example of a business who decided that well in advance.”

Everyone involved with saving Mix’s life reunited Wednesday along with a ceremony to honor the four Highland Mall employees for their life saving efforts. Those honored include security officers Jamael Jackson and Criselda Ozuna, along with mall housekeeping employees Carlos Ignacio and Fidel Salazar.