First Aid Corps

A 6-year-old boy is recovering after his heart stopped beating while at school Thursday.

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The student was taking part of a P.E. class outside at East Meadows Elementary School when he suddenly collapsed. But a two-minute response and life-saving training got his heart back in rhythm.

Logan Powell the Survivor

The boy is recovering at Primary Children’s Medical Center following the heroic efforts of those who first noticed him. His doctors say he’s still in critical condition, but his heart is beating on its own and he’s breathing on his own. He remains on oxygen as a precaution.

“Our main concern is for the student and their family,” said Nebo School District spokeswoman Lana Hiskey.

Friends were playing together when the young boy collapsed. One of the boy’s friends told the playground supervisor, who discovered the boy was not breathing and had no pulse.

“Our adult personnel moved quickly, called 911, and the emergency response vehicle got here very quickly,” Hiskey described. “(They) promptly took the student to a medical facility.”

The police got there in two minutes and tried to revive the boy with CPR, but only got a couple of breaths out of the boy. That’s when they used an Automated External Defibrillator to shock his heart back into action.

The boy was taken to the Payson Hospital before being airlifted to Primary Children’s Medical Center. Doctors still don’t know what made the boy go into cardiac arrest.

“Luckily, a lot of the students were in class,” Hiskey said.

The school sent a note home with all of the students to let parents know about the incident. It concludes by saying, “We are proud of the trained school staff that responded so well to the emergency.”

The boy’s aunt said the family is grateful to the P.E. teacher, the secretary and the Spanish Fork Polic Officer that saved the boy’s life.

The Nebo School District was already in the process of putting defibrillators in its schools before the Thursday’s event.

“We think it’s important to get those in every one of our schools,” Hiskey said.

A 9-year-old boy saved the life of his 2-year-old sister Sunday after she had fallen into their grandparents’ Mesa pool, fire officials said.

The little girl and her family had traveled from Las Vegas to visit their grandparents’ home in the 2600 block of South Athena, said Capt. Forrest Smith, a Mesa Fire Department spokesman.

The toddler somehow got into the pool, and for a few moments, the family didn’t know where she was. The mother spotted her on the pool’s surface and pulled her out. Her son began performing CPR on his sister, Smith said.

“He said he learned it from watching TV,” Smith said.

The boy saved his sister’s life, Smith said.

Neighbors said they heard screaming after the child was pulled from the pool and gathered to try to help. One of the neighbors, Kassie Ketring, 23, is a certified lifeguard. She said the child was breathing by the time she arrived in the yard.

“I got down on the child’s level and checked the airway, checked the breathing,” Ketring said. “I noticed she was breathing, so I just kept the airway open. I kept hearing the other child (the brother) saying, ‘You can’t die on me.’ It just sticks in my head, hearing that.”

On the way to the hospital, the toddler “started regaining her ability to breathe and started to cry,” Smith said.

A Maxwell couple got the scare of their lives when their 5-year-old son Blake came into their bedroom in the middle of the night to say he couldn’t breathe.

“In the back of my mind I am thinking that he is going to die and there is nothing I can do about it,” said Blake’s father Jeff Braafhart.

Luckily, Blake’s mother Kristi Braafhart is a nurse at Methodist West Hospital. She had given CPR before, but never to a child, and certainly never her own child.

“He said, ‘You know, mommy and daddy, I can’t breathe.’ So I told Jeff to take him outside. I learned a long time ago with croup, you take them outside into the cold air,” Kristi said.

Jeff explained what happened after that. “I got into the kitchen and right away he started to turn blue. Right away the skin color was going out of him,” Jeff said.

“His heart had stopped and everything,” Kristi said. Jeff told Kristi she should perform CPR on Blake.

“After that I remember checking for a pulse and he didn’t have a pulse, so I started compressions,” Kristi said. “I did about five cycles of compressions and breaths and then he finally took a breath so at that point it was just amazing. Honestly I didn’t think I would bring him back. So I was kind of shocked, and when he took that breath that was the most amazing thing I have ever heard: hearing him take that breath.”

“My mommy is the coolest mommy in the whole world,” Blake said Wednesday afternoon.

The Braafharts would find out later through a series of tests that Blake has a smaller-than-normal airway. And, at the time, Blake had the H1N1 flu virus. It all combined for a very scary night.

“We hope we can teach some parents and others the importance of learning CPR because you never know when you are going to need it,” said Kristi.

The parents of a six-year-old Pflugerville boy call his survival “miraculous” after he stopped breathing and his heart stopped last week.

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Brookhollow Kindergarten student Matthew Gates was at an after school program when he went into cardiac arrest.

“He’s a very rambunctious kid. He’s a six-year-old who likes to run and play,” Matthew’s father Mike Gates said.

Matthew’s grin hides a lifelong struggle against a rare heart disease known as Left Ventricular Non Compaction Cardiomyopathy.

Matthew’s family discovered the heart complication the day before his second birthday when he stopped breathing and collapsed. However, at that time he regained consciousness without the help of an AED or CPR.

Doctors told his parents he would not have issues until he was a teenager, but Matthew again collapsed last week at Brookhollow Elementary School in Pflugerville and stopped breathing.

After school teachers quickly administered CPR and used an AED to deliver a shock.

“His life was saved by an AED,” Mike Gates said.

Friday morning Austin-Travis County EMS demonstrated how an AED, or automated external defibrillator, can save lives.

Once the device is turned on it gives verbal instructions including placing pads on the front and back of the patient. The AED will then search for a pulse, and if there is none it gives a shock to the victim’s heart to restore its rhythm.

“It’s for anyone to use. Anyone can pull it off the wall, and use it if needed,” said CPR coordinator for Austin-Travis County EMS John Villanueva.

AEDs are available in public places including malls, airports, and city buildings.

In 2007, the Texas Legislature mandated that every school campus and UIL competition have an AED device readily available. Schools were supposed to comply by September 2008.

In 2006, an AED saved the life of Westlake football standout Matt Nader when his heart stopped during a game.

“Ninety-nine out of 100 people this happens to, they die. I am that one percent,” Nader said in September 2009.

Matthew also beat the odds, and is now recovering at Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas.

This week doctors planted a small defibrillator in his chest that will monitor his heartbeat.

Now Matthew’s family is thankful that he survived thanks to the quick action of after school teachers and the help of an AED.

“The doctors call it miraculous he was himself the next day. A lot of the kids don’t make it,” Mike Gates said.

On Monday afternoon, Aviles, 13, was set to begin a weekly workout at World Gym. After a five-minute warm up, Aviles took a water break.

Edgar Aviles the Survivor

When his trainer, Oscar Carranza, called the young boy to begin the workout session, Aviles stood up and immediately fell to the ground onto his stomach.

“It happened so fast, he didn’t even get to close his water bottle. Edgar was not breathing, there was no pulse and he was starting to turn blue,” Carranza said.

At that point, Jordan Ramirez, a sales rep at the gym who received his CPR certification last Thursday, ran to the boy after Carranza called for his help.

“I didn’t feel a pulse, so I told Oscar we had to conduct CPR,” Ramirez said. “You could tell when Edgar was coming back to life, you could see him come in and out.”

Within three minutes, EMTs arrived on the scene and immediately used a defibrillator that brought the boy back to life.

He was then transported to Providence Memorial Hospital in El Paso, where doctors stabilized his condition.

The next day, Edgar was transferred to University Medical Center of El Paso, where he was diagnosed with arrhythmic heart failure and an enlarged heart.

Elizabeth Aviles was at the gym during her son’s near-death encounter. She said she last talked to Edgar when he came to ask for a water bottle and went back to his workout. She was at another part of the facility when her son collapsed and did not witness the quick response by the two World Gym employees.

“I really thought I was going to lose my son,” Aviles said. “If it wasn’t for Oscar and Jordan my son wouldn’t be alive.”