First Aid Corps

Thursday’s girl’s basketball game at O’Gorman High School seemed like just another contest in a long basketball season. But, when the game reached halftime, the action off the court got much more attention than anything on the court.

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Referee Dan Sudbeck was part of a three-man crew working Thursday’s O’Gorman-Yankton basketball game. He retreated to the coach’s lounge at halftime and sat down in this chair. But soon, his fellow refs noticed Sudbeck was slumping to the floor. Trainer Rochelle Lauret came in from the other room with the school’s defibrillator.

“I had the shirt cut straight up and had the AED on him immediately,” Lauret said. “And then, the machine just takes care of everything after that. It assesses whether there’s a shockable heart rhythm, so it just took care of it and told me what to do basically.”

“We stood back and pushed the button, and all it took was one shot,” said Lauret, in her 12th year as O’Gorman’s athletic trainer. “We continued to do compressions, but you could tell he was breathing on his own after that. When the EMTs got there, he was already answering questions about his medical history.”

“Our referees’ room is five feet from the defibrilator in our training room, so the logistics were fine, but just having them in the building, I can see now that can save lives,” O’Gorman athletic director Steve Kueter said.

Kueter says Lauret’s been a trainer for the Knights for more than a decade. And her quick thinking made the best out of a very bad situation.

“I usually have it on the bench with me at the game and it’s underneath my chair,” Lauret said. “But that night, I had not taken it out there with me for some reason. And so, I just grabbed it, I was probably 15 feet away from him with my AED.”

O’Gorman has three defibrillators on campus, provided by local health partners. While Lauret’s been trained with them, Thursday night was the first time she had had ever used one in an emergency.

“The further away from it I get, the more freaked out I get,” Lauret said. “But I also told my family I want to carry it with me everywhere I go. I just feel like I have to have it with me now because I’m like, you never know.”

The scene on Thursday night not only reminded people of the importance of a defibrillator, but of life in general.

“It makes you rethink a lot of things,” Kueter said. “And the idea of providing the equipment and providing the training has always been there, but now it’s just become much more of a priority in our minds from last night how good that is.”

The Sudbeck family released a statement Friday afternoon thanking everyone for their prayers and concerns. Dan underwent bypass surgery and is currently resting.

“I sat down, maybe a minute or two and it felt like I was going to faint,” Sudbeck said.

In fact he remembers everything up until that point, up until his heart just stopped.

He had no chest pain, no shortness of breath. The next thing he remembers is commotion in the coach’s lounge and people asking if he knew where he was.

“I said ‘yea I’m at OG, the score is 29-28.’ And then one of them said, ‘do you remember getting shocked?’ And I said, ‘shocked? No I don’t remember getting shocked!’” Sudbeck said.

“I couldn’t have been in a better situation. I mean I’ve got two qualified trainers that are there, we’ve got a defibrillator right there. I’m two miles from the Heart Hospital. I mean the stars were aligned perfectly that night,” Sudbeck said.

“I think without that AED, I probably would not be here,” Sudbeck said.

Coincidentally, working with the Avera Heart Hospital and Sioux Falls Fire Rescue, Sudbeck’s wife Pat had been instrumental in getting AEDs placed in schools, churches and businesses and teaching people how to use them.

“I always knew my training would impact somebody I knew or somebody I loved. But I never dreamt in a hundred years that would be my own husband,” Pat said.

Student trainers are usually worried about the players on the field. But last week several Lafayette teens came to the rescue of someone unexpected. A referee at a football game Wednesday night collapsed on the side lines, and the LHS student trainers immediately sprang into action.

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“We teach them CPR, we teach them how to use the AED, we teach them basic life support,” said Jennifer Morrow, Co-Director of the LHS Medical Careers Academy.

Morrow was there the night Kenny Henry suffered from a heart attack and cardiac arrest while officiating a game. She says she couldn’t be more proud of the high school girls who put their skills and training into action.

“It was very scary but we were going to do everything we could to help him to make sure he would survive,” said Kelci Lions, one of the student trainers.

Lions, along with Kennen Granger, Natalie White and Claire Black immediately followed their emergency action plan by calling an ambulance, blocking off and clearing the scene and getting the Automatic External Defibrillator, or AED.

“It’s analyzing it and telling you if the heart rate is good or not, and whether or not that person needs to be shocked. And if it does then everybody stands back and it shocks the person and it revives them,” explained Lions.

Henry’s heart had to be shocked twice to revive him. He was then rushed to the hospital where he underwent emergency surgery. It was the girls’ teamwork that got him to the hospital in time.

“They knew exactly what to do, they got it all done I didn’t even have to tell them a thing, they just jumped into action,” said LHS Certified Trainer Aimee Gros.

And their quick thinking is the reason Henry is alive today.

“It puts things in perspective. We don’t just give people water, bad things can happen and we have to be there,” said student Claire Black.

With 6:21 left in the second quarter and Acadiana’s offense preparing for work after a Lafayette High kickoff, veteran umpire Kenneth Henry collapsed on the field.

To the five, and then six, prepared first responders at the game, it was readily apparent that he was having a heart attack.

By the book, early CPR was performed, the AED was administered once and then twice and then advanced life support followed.

Henry’s life was saved.

Before going through quintuple bypass surgery later Thursday night, local assignment secretary Greg Gautreaux said “25 or so” colleagues were at the hospital wishing him well.

“He’s an excellent umpire,” Gautreaux said. “In fact, he had already gotten an assignment to work a state championship game.”

Henry won’t be able to make that call to the Superdome in December after spending Friday recovering in intensive care. But thanks to the heroes surrounding him on the field, he’ll know who’s playing in the game he would have called.

Those who responded included Roy Payne, Dr. Jeff Mire, Troy Delahoussaye, Greg LeBlanc, LHS student trainer Kelci Lyons and LHS health academy instructor Jennifer Morrow.

“From what I understand, he asked the trainer for a cup of water, and then he collapsed,” Gautreaux said.

They saved his life.”

Lyons quickly fetched the defibrillator, while CPR was being done.

“You could tell immediately that he was losing oxygen,” said Payne, who was located in the end zone when he saw Henry fall to the ground. “There was no delay in care. We were breathing for him. We shocked him twice.”

Payne made it clear how important first doing CPR is and then doing to more advanced measures is to proper treatment.
Their heroic efforts were underscored by the fact that the Acadian Ambulance unit scheduled to attend the game was called off to an emergency on its way to the game. They were called again and arrived at the field as the first responders were finishing up their care.

Emergency medical workers were called to Alumni Soccer Field at Davidson College Saturday afternoon around 2:30 p.m. after a report that a youth-soccer official had collapsed during a game.

Davidson Fire Chief Jeff Almond said the man apparently had a heart attack and was not breathing.

As emergency personnel arrived, a doctor and a nurse who were attending the game were performing CPR on the man.

Emergency workers took over, continuing CPR.

They administered a shock using an automated defibrillator, and his heart returned to a normal rhythm, the chief said.

The man was taken by ambulance to Presbyterian Hospital in Huntersville, where he was treated briefly. He was then taken on to Presbyterian Hospital’s main location in Charlotte for further treatment.

Beyond that, his condition was not known late Saturday afternoon.

Paul Insco was a referee working the 1996 McMinn County-McMinn Central game.

Paul Insco the Survivor ( third from left )

All of a sudden, Inscho suffered a heart attack and fell to the ground in what was a scary incident for everybody.

The football game was quickly forgotten as Inscho’s life hung in the balance.

Fortunately, Dr. David Byrd and Dr. Craig Riley were at the game that night and provided the medical assistance Insco needed.

“From Friday night to the next Tuesday I don’t remember anything so a lot of what I’m telling you is what others have told me,” Inscho said.

“I know it was near the end of the first half and apparently I just dropped to the ground. Dr. Riley said I was likely dead before I hit the ground. Dr. Riley and Dr. Byrd were there and after 15 or 20 minutes of CPR and seven shocks with a defibrillator, they got a heart beat.”

Insco was rushed to Woods Memorial Hospital and later transferred to the University of Tennessee hospital. At UT hospital, it was discovered he had 95 percent blockage of one his ventricles leading to his heart and had an emergency angioplasty.

Inscho is now a TSSAA referee supervisor while Dr. Byrd and Dr. Riley both have private practices. Insco went back onto the field as a referee in 1998 and last year became a TSSAA game officials supervisor.

“(AED) It’s something that you hope you don’t have to use, but you have it if you need it,” Inscho said. “I didn’t know if either Central or McMinn had an AED and I’m glad they do now. Dr. Riley and Dr. Byrd, and I’m sure there were others as well, are the heroes in all this.”