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.”
It happened March 23rd, during the first class of the day.
Gym teacher Ken Haines said, “The class was doing a mile timed run. He was up toward the front and he was running strong, completed one lap, he was running around and right in this area right here, I saw him collapse down on all fours, seconds later he was just totally unresponsive.”
He was talking about seventh grader Travis Arnold. He radioed nursing assistant Tressa Palmer immediately, and sent students to get help.
“Two girls from the middle school came running and said that they needed me on the track, that a student was down,” said Palmer.
Two other staff members got the school’s defibrillator, or A.E.D. as she ran to the track. “I went over to Mr. Haines, he told me to try and see if I could find a pulse. I could not, Travis was still unconscious,” said Palmer.
Haines said, “She got the AED got right out here, I continued CPR while she hooked him up to the AED and shocked him and she started chest compressions and I was doing the breaths.”
His father, David Arnold remembers the call from the school secretary. “‘The word defibrillator was used’, and I said you only use a defibrillator on someone’s whose heart stopped. And she said Mr. Arnold you need to get to the hospital right now.”
What happened to the him was later called a sudden death episode. His parents say if the stars we not aligned that day, it all would be different. It seems everyone was in the right place at the right time.
A month later, Travis was back to school, and now, he’s just about back to doing all the things he used to do. “Yeah, 99 percent,” said Travis. He’s a man of few words, and thanks his favorite teacher. Dad is thankful he’s here to do it. “Like that day, I was just thankful I got to hug my son again.”
As the staff members and EMTs were honored, the gym teacher that saved his life said, “Travis, thanks for pulling through buddy, I appreciate that, and so does everyone else here”
Ironically, that gym teacher Ken Haines, collapsed in high school during a soccer game, was taken to the same hospital, and saved by a defibrillator.
Francis Howell Middle School’s seventh-grader Austin Redd, 13, collapsed to the floor at the start of class and went into cardiac arrest about 12:45 p.m., officials said.
St. Charles County Deputy Ron Neupert, 50, the school’s resource officer, raced to the gym and found Austin unconscious, not breathing and without a pulse. Neupert started CPR and radioed for an ambulance.
The school’s nurse, Lynne Finnerty, shocked Austin’s heart once with the school’s automatic external defibrillator.
“It seemed like forever, but within a few seconds, he began to breathe on his own and you could see he was coming around,” Neupert said.
Austin is expected to recover.
Marty Limpert, a spokesman for the St. Charles County Ambulance District, said the incident illustrates the need for AEDs in schools and staff trained in life-saving procedures.
“There’s no doubt that they saved his life,” Limpert said.
“It’s awesome,” Neupert said of Austin’s recovery. “These kids are my kids, and I care about every single one of them.”
Francis Howell Middle School Principal Amy Johnston said that Thursday was the first time the school has used its AED since it was installed about eight years ago.
Fifteen minutes before dismissal at Bismarck-Henning Junior High School quickly became the longest minutes of Josie Siddens’ life.
Siddens, the nurse for the school district, was returning to her office March 25 when a student came running up, telling her 12-year-old Ashton Norwell was screaming in the gymnasium.
Norwell was being led to Siddens’ office because he felt sick when he began to cry out in pain. But by the time Siddens — who was only seconds from the gymnasium — arrived, the boy was unresponsive and not breathing.
From there, Siddens went into action, moving the boy to the gym floor with the help of a gym teacher while Principal Rusty Campbell called 911. Another gym teacher stepped into the hallway to retrieve an automated external defibrillator hanging on the wall.
“I was looking at (the scene) saying ‘This is not happening here,’” said Siddens, a part-time emergency room nurse at Provena United Samaritans Medical Center. “From there it was just gut reaction.”
Siddens said she used the defibrillator immediately and then began CPR. She repeated the process, but was getting no response from Ashton, who had turned blue.
“I was scared the entire time, but from the second shock on I was saying ‘C’mon, buddy. C’mon, Ashton,’” Siddens recounted.
Suddenly, following the third shock from the defibrillator, Ashton drew a quick gasp of air.
Oxygen provided by Bismarck Community Ambulance helped bring him around and by the time Medix Ambulance personnel arrived, the lifeless boy was cracking jokes at his school nurse.
“There’s never been a better sound in my life than hearing him talk to me,” she said. “It was just fantastic.”
It may have only been a few minutes, but the scene was emotionally draining for Siddens.
“I’m fine during the emergency, I can handle myself well during the emergency,” she said. “But immediately after the emergency, not so well. Lots of people held me up after that.”
Just after noon, a 7-year-old boy was celebrating at a holiday party with his classmates at the Josiah Quincy Elementary School in Boston, said Matthew Wilder, spokesman for the Boston public schools.
Suddenly, he became unresponsive and went into cardiac arrest, Wilder said. It is unclear what triggered the problem.
School nurses immediately rushed to the classroom where the party was taking place and began performing CPR on the boy, Wilder said.
Three minutes later, emergency medical technicians arrived and found the boy was not breathing and had no pulse. Paramedics arrived on the scene a few minutes later.
Emergency workers managed to revive the child, but he was not breathing on his own when they transported him across the street to Tufts Medical Center, according to emergency officials.
“The school nurse really should be praised,” said Jennifer Mehigan, spokeswoman for Boston Emergency Medical Services. “Those quick actions are really what save someone’s life.”
Thomas and another student were racing up the school’s front drive about 4:10 p.m during the first day of track practice, when Thomas fell to the pavement.
Physical education teacher Becky Smith retrieved an automated external defibrillator from the school. Math teacher Dan Schroeder connected Thomas to the AED and administered shock treatments, while Smith and Assistant Principal Christine Riemer assisted Davis with CPR.
Math teacher Dan Schroeder says that voice from the school defibrillator helped him and several others save their student.
“I checked for a pulse and could not find one and then I saw the compression’s were being done from the other teachers.”
P.E. teacher Becky Smith ran the defibrillator outside as other staff members applied CPR and waited for an ambulance.
“I’m thankful that we were all there and that we could help this young man and that he’s doing well.”
“It’s an amazing feeling to know that I helped save someone’s life, especially a young student,” says Ty-Ray’s track coach Chana Hinkston.
Paramedics were able to re-establish a heart rhythm with Thomas in the ambulance en route to the hospital.
Ty-Ray is currently recovering at Rockford Memorial Hospital.
Ty-Ray’s dad, Steve Thomas, says the family didn’t know his son had a heart condition before he collapsed on Wednesday. But now he’s on the road to recovery.
My other son is up there got him doing leg exercises right now, so we can get him stronger, he’s standing, sitting on a chair right now , it’s a blessing.”
“If they didn’t go through that training there’s no telling what would have happened, if they weren’t there at the right time, he’d be lost, I mean he would have been gone.”
He and his mom, Marlo Thomas, agree that Ty-Ray is a lucky kid.
“God put everybody in the place they were supposed to be,” Marlo said. “Because if they weren’t, who knows what would have happened. It wasn’t his time yet.”
He still might play basketball in the future, but for now he’s taking things slow.
“I’m just thankful to be here and thankful that God touched me,” he said.
In the gym later that morning, Ron Pardi, a gym and music teacher at the school, led the first-graders in a ball-bouncing exercise.
When 6-year-old Olivia Quigley suddenly dropped to the floor, Pardi went to her and found her still breathing. He went to the office to call for help and sent another student to fetch Casaletto from his sixth-grade classroom nearby.
Teacher Robert Casaletto, 38, rushed to the gym fearing something had happened to his daughter, also a first-grader in the class. He went to help Olivia as the other first-graders watched in stunned silence. One began to cry. Then, he sent them into another room.
“That was the hard thing for me,” Casaletto said. “Part of me wanted to go hug my daughter, but I thought, Olivia needs me more.”
Carabine rushed in minutes later. She saw Olivia on the floor, her skin gray. Carabine knew the girl well, having met her at a summer camp last year where she was teaching.
Carabine put her mouth over Olivia’s and gave her two breaths. Casaletto gave her 30 chest compressions. The two alternated the routine for 7 minutes.
Firefighters and emergency workers arrived shortly afterward and shocked the girl with a defibrillator as a school administrator watched and said a Hail Mary aloud.
Olivia’s heartbeat returned.
Joe Quigley arrived at the school just in time to see his daughter’s breathing restored. He pulled out his cellphone and called his wife, a scientist at Biogen Idec Inc. in Cambridge.
“When we got to the ER at Mass. General, they said they believed she had a heart attack,” she said. “It was absolutely inconceivable to me. I still have a hard time accepting this happened.”
“MGH called her their miracle child,” Joe Quigley said sitting in his daughter’s hospital room yesterday.
Yesterday afternoon in her hospital room, Olivia behaved like a typical little girl, coloring pictures and singing songs. She greeted Casaletto and Carabine, as well as her first-grade teacher, Lauren Rozzi, with open arms. They gave her gifts, stuffed animals and notes, from her first-grade classmates. She wiggled two of her loose teeth for them.
“There are no words to express my gratitude,” Cathy Quigley said. “Olivia had angels on earth taking care of her.”
Updates
Today Boston EMT Philip Kennard returned to the same auditorium for a celebration of the rescue of Olivia Quigley, now 7. She was in the front row with her parents, smiling, as officials praised the school’s teachers and rescue personnel for bringing her back to life.
“Right there,” said Kennard, 25, pointing to the spot on the floor where he and his partner Michael Steiner, 49, treated Olivia that day.
“It’s amazing. It’s one of those things that can happen only once in an entire career,” said Kennard, a tall, thin, young man in the brown uniform of an EMT. “She’s made a full recovery, a happy little kid.”
About 200 students from the school, from grades 1 to 7, the girls clad in plaid jumpers and the boys in white polo shirts and dark pants, crowded into the auditorium for the ceremony, which included a presentation of proclamations from the Legislature and from the city.
Principal Mary Ann Manfredonia said Olivia’s family was truly “a profile in courage” and that Olivia had “battled the odds and is well on her way to a complete recovery.”
Joe Quigley, Olivia’s father, said the ceremony was “fabulous.”
“It gave us such an opportunity to stand up and actually thank, in person, everybody that was involved, the teachers, the school, Father Wayne from the church, and, of course, the EMTs that responded so well,” said Quigley.
“Olivia’s doing great. She’s just so happy to be back in school. She’s so happy to be back with her friends. She wants to be a normal little girl. And she is a normal little girl, she’s just been through an awful lot,” said Quigley. It’s still a mystery why Olivia’s heart stopped, Quigley said.
Asked after the ceremony how she was feeling, Olivia said, “Better,” with a big smile.
Quigley said it took seven minutes for emergency responders to get to the school. That was “absolutely fantastic,” he said, but “in our daughter’s case, if CPR hadn’t been performed on her, seven minutes would have been too late.”
Williams immediately began CPR and called for the school’s automated external defibrillator — commonly called an A.E.D. With the help of four of the school’s coaches — Merrick Sims, Brad Jackson, Tim Mantooth and Clarence Green — Williams got Soto hooked up to the A.E.D., which said Soto required a shock to get his heart back in action.
“As soon as the shock wave went off, he started gasping for another breath,” Williams said. “And I was able to find a pulse coming.”
“I had not doubt we were gonna get Bernardo through this,” Williams said. “No doubt.”
When asked about Mr. Williams’ actions, Soto said, “I feel happy that he did that for me.”
At Children’s Sibley Heart Center, Soto was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
“This was a divine moment and divine timing,” said Assistant Principal Greg Williams. “I feel great every time I see him. It was a meant-to-be moment.”
A 10-year-old Stamford boy went into full cardiac arrest Tuesday after colliding with another child at school.
Officials said the incident occurred at 11 a.m. at Heart Magnet School in Stamford.
They said Gerard Sangermano, a custodian who was CPR-certified in firefighter training, began administering CPR on fourth-grader Isaiah Walden Butler. They said school nurse Tomasena Smikle was summoned and used a defibrillator to resuscitate the child.
Broderick started CPR, doing the breaths while principal Prato Baronee did the compressions.
Football coach Scott Hagerman — freshly trained in using the school’s automated external defibrillator, or AED — rushed it into the gym.
“It actually administered the shock, bringing him back to CPR state, and it said resume CPR and that’s what we did,” Broderick said.
For at least 10 minutes, they kept Levi alive until medics arrived and airlifted Levi to Children’s Hospital. As far as doctors can tell, Levi suffered no brain damage.
And Levi’s grateful parents say the AED and trained teachers are the reason.
