First Aid Corps

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.

Randy Stevens has a lot to be thankful for this holiday season.

On Nov. 8 Stevens, 51, was dead for at least 20 minutes, kept alive by CPR administered by his girlfriend, Lisa Wright, by Makakilo firefighters and finally by paramedic Shirley Ann Cazinha.

Randy Stevens the Survivor

The firefighters used a defibrillator three times to send dosages of electrical energy to Stevens’ heart to try to restart it while he lay on the floor of his second-floor Waiko Place bedroom.

When city Emergency Medical Services paramedic Cazinha and emergency medical technician Kaipo Hayashida arrived at the two-story Makakilo home after 11 p.m., Stevens’ skin was purple. He had no pulse and was not breathing.

Doctors later said he had suffered “a sudden death cardiac arrest.”

On Thanksgiving, Stevens met with Cazinha and Hayashida for the first time since his heart attack.

“I am very thankful,” Stevens told reporters. “I am very blessed.”

Cazinha, who has been a paramedic for nearly four years, said her heart dropped to her stomach when an EMS dispatcher told her and Hayashida by radio to respond to a “51-year-old male in cardiac arrest.”

“There were cars in the driveway,” Cazinha recalled. “We couldn’t get our gurney in, so we just went in.”

Cazinha said firefighters had already tried unsuccessfully three times to restart Steven’s heart with the defibrillator.

Even after shocking Steven’s heart two more times, Cazinha said, “there was no response.”

“There was nothing to indicate that his heart was operating.”

Cazinha said she continued to perform CPR on Stevens, shocking his heart for a sixth time while the ambulance was taking him and Wright to Pali Momi Medical Center.

“I kept pounding on his chest,” Cazinha said.

The sixth defibrillator shock resuscitated him.

“There was a nice rhythm.” Cazinha said. “There was good beating, good pulse. His color started coming back. He started to look pink again.”

At that point Stevens remembers waking up in the ambulance, hearing the siren and Wright telling him to wake up.

“I thought I was dreaming,” he said.

Cazinha said Stevens started talking at that point, saying, “I love you, baby.”

Cazinha said she called out to Wright, who was sitting in the front of the ambulance.

“He’s talking. She was crying. I was crying,” Cazinha said.

Wright, who was an EMT with Hawaii and Maui counties, added, “You never think this will happen to your own loved ones. When it happens to your loved one, it’s a different ballgame. I never thought it was going to happen to me.”

Also joining the group Thursday was Deputy Sheriff Bryan Marciel, a neighbor, who helped Wright administer CPR on Stevens.

Wright also credited another neighbor, Dr. Jonathan Paladino, a cardiologist, for his assistance Nov. 8.

Wright and Stevens said his heart attack shows how important it is to have “someone in every household learn CPR.”

“I am the living example,” said Stevens, who works as a property and land manager for Edmund C. Olson Trust.

Two of his seven teenage children are now CPR-qualified.

Stevens, who had just completed a physical examination and had no history of high blood pressure or cholesterol problems before his heart attack, now has an automatic internal cardiac defibrillator implanted in his chest. Similar to a pacemaker, the device constantly monitors his heart rhythm and automatically administers shocks for various life-threatening arrhythmias.

Hayashida, who hopes to qualify as a city paramedic, had been working as an EMT for only two months when he and Cazinha responded to the emergency.

“His case was pretty unique,” said Hayashida. “This was first case he saw when a person came back from a cardiac arrest.”

Sports studies student James Cory owes his life to the quick response of St John Wales volunteers and is living proof defibrillators can make all the difference.

Mr Cory collapsed on a night out at the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David in Carmarthen and was treated by two St John medics stationed near by.

Volunteer Andrew King, 27, said: “When we arrived, he was in full cardiac arrest and wasn’t breathing.”

Mathew Jones, 21, a St John member for three years, attached the defibrillator to Mr Cory’s chest and he was brought back to life.

He regained consciousness in Carmarthen’s Glangwili General Hospital two days later, and is continuing his recovery at Morriston Hospital in Swansea.

The student said: “I don’t remember anything at all about what happened. I owe my life to Andy and Mathew.

“Without St John being able to respond so quickly, I wouldn’t be here today. I had no idea I was ill. I’m young, I keep fit and I never contemplated that something like this could happen to me. These volunteers are amazing and I’ll be forever grateful.”

Keith Dunn, St John Wales chief executive, said: “This highlights the need to have trained first aiders and vital equipment nearby. The earlier the defibrillator is deployed the better the chance of survival.”

Stephanie Lloyd, president of the National Union of Students in Wales, said: “James is lucky. But other students may not be unless universities and colleges around Wales heed the call to keep defibrillators on site. ”

Bystanders at a soccer game at La Salle Catholic Prepatory High School saved a 60-year-old man’s life Sunday afternoon.

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

The bystanders, a doctor and off-duty paramedic, used CPR and an automatic external defibrillator taken from the school to treat the man, who had collapsed while playing the game.

The bystanders were able to deliver one life-saving shock to bring the man, who was unconscious and not breathing, back into a viable heart rhythm, said Clackamas Fire District 1 spokesman Brandon Paxton.

Fire crews arrived around 1 p.m. at the school, 11999 S.E. Fuller Road, east of Milwaukie, administering advanced life support measures to stabilize the man before he was transported to Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Center. He is in stable condition at the center.

Rick Rawson, 69, has been a runner for nearly 40 years, joining organised social runs held by Athletics Nelson and Waimea Harriers. In his heyday, he was running anything up to 80 to 100 kilometres a week.

Rick Rawson the Survivor

He was fitted with a pacemaker in 1991 to assist a small heart defect detected during a medical examination when he applied for his taxi driver’s licence. Lately, he’s been doing more cycling to stay fit.

On July 18, he joined a group that included Kimble on a regular Wednesday night social run from the Ocean Lodge in Tahunanui. The course finished five kilometres later, outside St Stephen’s.

Rawson has no memory of anything after getting his hair cut that morning, but the story goes that he was standing in the queue at the end of the race, waiting to sign in. Seconds after he stopped, so did his heart.

Kimble, who had finished the run earlier and was already relaxing at the bar, was at his father’s side within seconds of being told he had collapsed.

“I went so fast I didn’t even look to check if there were any cars. I just sprinted across the road.”

He found his father slumped on the ground, with two people checking to see if he was breathing.

The Goldpine manager, whose workplace first aid training included learning CPR, immediately swung into action.

“I pretty much assessed the situation – he was on his side and didn’t have a pulse, and I couldn’t get his mouth open. I just threw him on his back and started pumping his chest.”

Leach then drove past.

“I saw a crowd outside the church and thought that was weird,” he said. “I did a U-turn, and it was then I heard the job called on the radio.”

Leach, who was driving a work car and had all the “tools” with him, grabbed a defibrillator and administered the first of three electric shocks.

Anaesthetist registrar James Tucker, who was also on his way home and stopped to help, put in an airway. An ambulance arrived soon afterwards.

Leach said it was the third shock that brought Mr Rawson back to life.

“He was dead,” he said when asked how ill Mr Rawson was.

“We can save dead people, but without early CPR and defibrillation, the recovery drops exponentially every minute.”

St John says survival from cardiac arrest depends on a number of factors prior to an ambulance arriving, including a bystander performing CPR and the early use of a defibrillator. This increases the chance of a person surviving a cardiac arrest from about 7 to 30 per cent.

“There were people there with knowledge and who were doing CPR well. He got lucky,” Leach said.

Rawson was taken by ambulance to Nelson Hospital’s emergency department.

His wife Sue, who had gone to play bridge as a break from planning the couple’s 50th wedding anniversary, had been taken immediately to where her husband lay in Tahunanui.

Sue Rawson arrived to see electric shocks being administered to her husband’s heart.

Rawson arrived at hospital in a critical condition, and was placed in intensive care once he was stabilised. He was “frozen down” over the next 24 hours. His son and wife never left his side.

“We sat for 50 hours waiting,” Mrs Rawson said. Kimble did not sleep from that Wednesday night until late on Friday night.

“We were told he might not come through, or that he would be brain-damaged.”

Leach said Nelson Hospital, as a secondary hospital, was lucky to have such a “fantastic” cardiology team.

“Without all the pieces of the puzzle coming into line, whatever we do is null and void.”

Rawson was flown to Christchurch for surgery on Thursday last week. He now has a new pacemaker with a defibrillator, and four stents in the arteries of his heart.

“I’m very lucky, and unfortunately I can’t tell you about any near-death experience. I don’t know what happened – it all seems surreal.”

He is now managing some light daily exercise, and said he could not say enough about the staff at Nelson and Christchurch hospitals.

Kimble is deeply grateful to all the people who helped, including his friends and Leach. “You couldn’t have asked for a better person to turn up.”