First Aid Corps

Two local community center employees who were honored Thursday for saving the life of a Sioux Falls man with a defibrillator said they were simply doing their job.

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Trey Bren and Kelsey Remund, both part-time community center recreation leaders, were working at Morningside Community Center on Dec. 4 when they spotted Vance Magee, a 21-year-old Sioux Falls resident, who had fallen to the floor at mid-court while playing basketball.

Kelsey Remund & Trey Bren the Saviours

Magee was experiencing a cardiac arrest.

After he got back on his feet and was able to be taken off the court, he started seizing.

The pair acted quickly, calling 911 and using the public access defibrillator and CPR to save the unresponsive Magee’s life.

All Parks and Recreation employees receive CPR training, officials said Thursday at the ceremony honoring the pair, and that training was a large factor in Bren and Remund’s quick response, they said.

“We’ve always done the training with the CPR and everything, and never once did I think I’d actually have to use it,” Remund said. “The training helped a lot.

Bren and Remund were given plaques Thursday in recognition of their fast action, clear thinking and ability to take action.

Vance remembers little of that day, only waking up in the hospital, where he spent six days. Now, he said he feels good and is excited to get back to work.

“I’m just glad to be here right now, it’s kind of hard to realize what I’ve been through,” Magee said. “I just want to say thank you to everybody, thank you.”

Bren and Remund say they were glad they could do their job and help save a life.

“Vance, I don’t want you or your family to think that you owe us anything; we were simply doing our job,” Bren said.

Sioux Falls Mayor Mike Huether said he was proud of the pair.

“Four words: Vance is with us,” said Huether said. “I’m just so proud. I get to do so many great things as mayor, and this is just another one. You two young people , look at the impact you’ve already made.Your moms are proud of you, your dads are proud of you, I’m proud of you, the city is proud of you. Nice job.”

Crawford Best, 72, a professional bassoonist, lifelong runner and peak-bagger, survived an unexpected heart attack that struck while he was in the Glenwood Hot Springs Pool, thanks to quick work by pool lifeguards with CPR and a defibrillator, followed by expert care at Valley View and St. Mary’s hospitals.

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“All those people saved my life. There are no two ways about it,” the Santa Fe, N.M., man said Friday, after taking his daily post-operative half-mile walk as he recuperates at his son’s home in Denver.

Luke Johnson, Brianne Jones, Alicia Whiteside & Travis Newcomb the Saviours

“To me it was truly amazing that I was so lucky, because 99 percent of the time I am not in those circumstances, and I couldn’t have gotten that help. If I’d been driving, or on Quandary Peak, I wouldn’t have made it,” he said.

As it was, Best and his friend Carole Whitney of Denver were wading through the Hot Springs Pool after swimming laps, shortly after 5 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 29.

“My vision was funny, and Carole says I said something, and then I don’t remember anything until I was being helped onto the gurney and being wheeled into the ambulance,” he recalled.

In between were several tense minutes when no one knew what the outcome might be.

Whitney said Best went underwater, and at first she thought he was clearing his ears.

“But when my internal alarm sounded, I pulled him up and he was unconscious,” she recalled in an email sent to friends and family.

Whitney cried for help, and the pool’s lifeguards kicked into gear, recalled Travis Newcomb, assistant pool manager.

“Ali jumped in and made the rescue. She pulled him out, and we activated our emergency plan,” Newcomb said, referring to lifeguard Alicia Whiteside. “All the lifeguards went into action.”

While lifeguard Luke Johnson called 911, Newcomb grabbed the pool’s automated external defibrillator (AED) and ran to the lodge side of the pool. By the time he got there, lifeguard Brianne Jones was already performing rescue breathing on Best. A doctor who was at the pool at the time performed the chest compressions, and a nurse assisted.

“They went through a cycle of CPR, and then we made sure everything was dry and ready, and got the AED hooked up,” Newcomb said. Best had a pulse, but it was wildly irregular — just the circumstance the AED is made for. The team applied the shock treatment twice and the device successfully corrected Best’s heart rhythm.

“He took some breaths, he became conscious, and pretty soon he could answer questions correctly,” Newcomb said. Best actually sat up while the Glenwood Springs Fire Department’s emergency medical technicians were rolling in the gurney.

By this time, all eyes at the pool were on the dramatic life-and-death action.

“We were trying to block the scene, but it’s pretty out in the open,” Newcomb said. “Everybody could see what was happening. When he came to and was wide awake, then everybody clapped.

“It was pretty incredible to see, somebody who passed away, and he came back to life in front of us,” Newcomb added.

This was his second time to use the AED in a real-life situation, and it has worked both times, Newcomb said.

Best was out of the pool and breathing, but he was still in plenty of hot water.

Once he arrived at the Valley View Hospital emergency room, Dr. Steven Heilbrunn’s angiogram revealed that two of Best’s four main heart arteries were 99 percent blocked, while the other two were 60 to 70 percent blocked.

This was stunning news regarding a man who routinely runs three miles and does 50 to 70 push-ups and sit-ups a day, climbed a 14er this summer, has a low resting pulse and low blood pressure, and was pronounced by his doctor earlier this year as “one of the healthiest people in my practice.”

The blockage was so extreme, Whitney said, that Heilbrunn and his team elected to airlift Best to St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction rather than risk the extra time and elevation gain of a flight to Denver.

“By 8:30 p.m. he was on the helicopter, and he went into surgery at 11 p.m.,” Whitney said.

The quadruple bypass surgery took four and a half hours.

After getting a call, Best’s son, Dr. Alan Best, a neuroradiologist, and daughter-in-law, Dr. Flora Waples, an emergency room doctor, drove over from their home in Denver, met up with Whitney in Glenwood Springs, and continued west to Grand Junction.

“At 9:30 the next morning, we were in his room talking to him,” Whitney said. “He was sitting up and we were having an alert and interesting conversation.”

Best spent two days in intensive care at St. Mary’s, and was discharged on Wednesday. He plans to spend the rest of November recuperating at his son’s home in Denver.

There is no doubt in Owen Munro’s mind – if it wasn’t for the defibrillator and well-trained staff at his local gym, he would not be here today.

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Early this year, the retiree, who was then 69, had just finished his workout at the North Shore YMCA and was about to change when his heart stopped beating.

Strini Naidoo the Saviour & Owen Munro the Survivor

“I had no feeling of discomfort, I just switched off, apparently,” he said yesterday.

Mr Munro, who has been going to the gym twice a week for the past 10 years, said the last thing he remembered was going into a toilet cubicle.

“I was going to get changed and literally I fell inside a cubicle,” he said.

“I had no notion. I didn’t feel unwell at all. I went to the gym and the next thing I knew, I had been several days in hospital.”

Fitness business manager Strini Naidoo was one of the first on the scene and played a key role in saving Mr Munro’s life when he suffered a sudden cardiac arrest – something that is different from a heart attack, which he had suffered 18 years ago and is the reason he goes to the gym.

“Some of the members made a noise that somebody had fallen in the changing room. We all rushed in … and I saw his head popping through the [bottom] of the toilet door. I jumped over the cubicle, ripped the door out and pulled him out,” said Mr Naidoo.

“He was just lying there; no movement, and his heartbeat was almost faint to nothing – it was really in a stressed state.”

While juggling calls to St John, Mr Naidoo and his staff performed CPR and used the defibrillator – bought thanks to a Lion Foundation grant last year – to jolt his heart twice.

St John staff arrived soon after and took Mr Munro to hospital in a serious but stable condition.

He underwent a triple bypass and has a device in his chest so if the same thing happens again it will jump-start his heart.

On the day of the drama, the ambulance driver later returned to the YMCA to compliment Mr Naidoo on doing such a good job.

His actions helped save Mr Munro’s life- although he plays down his role.

“You just act to the best of your instinct and that’s what happened,” Mr Naidoo said.

“I don’t want people to make a big deal out of it; it’s all in a day’s work. I think anyone would do it.

“It doesn’t make me feel proud, it doesn’t make me feel excited, I’m just happy for him to be alive.”

Christopher P. Prezioso, an avid golfer who works as supervising judicial marshal in Waterbury Superior Court, saved Hunt’s life the day after winning the men’s championship tournament Saturday afternoon at Watertown Golf Club’s pro shop.

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“Not only was he the winner, but the hero for the weekend,” said Ian Marshall, head golf professional at the course.

Prezioso said he walked into the shop at about 7 a.m. and greeted Hunt, who was talking to an employee at the counter. While Prezioso was turned away, he heard a noise like something sliding down a wall and turned back to see Hunt face down on the floor.

Yelling for the pro shop staff to call 911, Prezioso rolled Hunt over, noticing his struggle to breathe and his faint pulse.

“Then he just kind of locked up and stopped everything,” Prezioso said.

Prezioso began chest compressions, while staffers and golfers helped cut Hunt’s shirt away and cleared the area for police and ambulance crews. Marshall readied a defibrillator he pulled off the wall about five feet from where Hunt fell.

In between compressions, Prezioso followed the defibrillator’s instructions, shocking Hunt twice before his pulse returned.

By the time the ambulance arrived, Hunt was breathing on his own. He was treated at Waterbury Hospital.

Prezioso, 34, who lives in Southbury, is good friends with Hunt’s son and often plays golf with the Hunts, he said. Judicial marshals are trained annually in first aid, CPR and defibrillation, and Prezioso has served for 16 years, making the experience of saving a life seem routine while it was happening, Prezioso said.

“I actually stayed very calm,” Prezioso said. “It was exactly like how the training videos are.”

Only after they loaded Hunt into the ambulance did the weight of the event kick in, Prezioso said.

“I’m not an emotional person, I never am, and I cried that whole day,” Prezioso said.

Prezioso has already received one award for helping to save a man in 2008 who had a seizure in the courthouse lobby. His latest act of heroism is not surprising, said Anthony Candido, the chief judicial marshal at the courthouse.

“Chris is the kind of person, whether it’s good or bad, you can depend on,” Candido said.

Hunt, 67, lives in the borough with his wife, Diane, and retired last year after 44 years on the borough police force. Two of his sons, Ronald and Steven, live in the borough and work for the same department as sergeant and lieutenant, respectively.

His oldest son, 46-year-old Thomas Hunt Jr., was on his way from his Waterbury home to meet his father for golf Sunday when he got a call about the heart attack.

“The doctor said if it wasn’t for him being in that place, at that time, with people who knew what to do and do immediately, he probably wouldn’t be where he is now,” said Thomas Hunt Jr., who is a counselor supervisor at Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown. “We’re truly blessed.”

Russell Morrison barely remembers the day his heart stopped four times but he will always remember the technology and people involved in saving his life.

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The Invercargill Licensing Trust recently granted more than $4000 to buy its 57th defibrillator for the region – Mr Morrison’s life was saved by one of the first.

Russell Morrison the Survivor

In early 2008 the defibrillator was donated to the Georgetown Bowling Club. Three weeks later Mr Morrison, then 65 and working as the club’s greenkeeper, collapsed.

He was preparing the green for an upcoming tournament when he stopped breathing, he said yesterday.

“I was told that the mower took off, ending up in a ditch, and I landed on the green.”

Two first-year bowlers assisted. One started CPR while the other rushed for his cellphone to call an ambulance.

Another club member and trained defibrillator operator who happened to be driving past was flagged down and he began attempting to restart Mr Morrison’s heart.

“I’m told I leapt 75mm off the ground,” he said.

The ambulance quickly arrived, paramedics took over and he was resuscitated another three times.

He was taken to Southland Hospital and his daughter Pam Wilson and her two brothers were told the news was grim.

“I got a call to say Dad had collapsed and it wasn’t looking good. I was told there was no hope. I didn’t think he would survive,” Mrs Wilson said yesterday.

Mr Morrison was incoherent and does not remember the next few days.

“There was not much that could be done for me and virtually, I was in a room to die.”

But the defibrillator proved its worth and left doctors in awe of Mr Morrison’s recovery.

He was taken through to Dunedin for an angiogram and it was found a blood clot was the cause. He also had 90 per cent of three parts of his arteries blocked.

Mr Morrison said he appreciated everyone’s contribution and the defibrillator.

“When I look back I have enjoyed the past few years and look forward to many more. The defibrillator saved my life.”