First Aid Corps

On Aug. 15, Dolores DuMond, 77, had just been seated to lunch in the Garden Room of the Tavern at the Beekman Arms when she suddenly felt short of breath.

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It was her brother-in-law’s 94th birthday, DuMond said. “I was treating him and my sister to lunch.”

Dolores DuMond the Survivor

The Hudson, Columbia County, resident recalled the restaurant happened to be crowded that day — a fortunate thing, as it turned out.

“Once I sat down at the table, I felt breathless,” she said. “I thought, ‘I’ll be fine in a few minutes.’ Then, I heard this buzzing in my ears. I could see a darkness coming into my field of vision.”

Then, she said, all went black.

Sitting at a nearby table was 48-year-old Rhinebeck resident Brian Hutchins, who was having a business luncheon with seven of his co-workers.

“We were eating, and the next thing I knew, someone was calling out for help,” he said.

When Hutchins turned to look, he saw DuMond slumped forward at her table. A few seconds later, he said, she fell to the floor. He and others rushed to help.

“We thought she was choking, so we checked her mouth,” Hutchins said.

But she hadn’t swallowed anything. She hadn’t ordered her food. DuMond stopped breathing a few seconds later, he said.

Hutchins and two women — one, he thought to be a nurse visiting from out of town — cleared the room and began to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

“They started doing chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation,” he said. “I ran to the desk and asked if they had an AED.”

Luckily for DuMond, a machine had been donated to the restaurant a year or so earlier by the Heart Safe Club of Rhinebeck.

“I grabbed it, ran back and we opened it up,” Hutchins said.

Following the steps provided by automated voice instructions, they applied electrode pads to DuMond’s chest and the machine delivered a life-saving shock.

“Within seconds, she started coughing and choking,” he said.

An ambulance arrived minutes later from Northern Dutchess Hospital.

“She wasn’t breathing,” Hutchins said. “If it wasn’t for the defibrillator, I don’t think she would have survived.”

Hutchins dismissed any notion of being a hero in saving DuMond’s life.

A waitress at Red Lobster restaurant on South Glenstone Avenue got a special honor on Wednesday. It wasn’t a birthday or anniversary but recognition for the way that Autumn Morris sprang into action and saved a man’s life.

Autumn Morris the Saviour

Morris wasn’t supposed to work last Aug. 6, but she did. On that day, Dan White of Rolla went into cardiac arrest at a table.

Morris immediately began CPR on White and continued until the fire department arrived. Morris visited his wife, Bernice, at the hospital, and kept in contact with the family through his recovery.

The Whites drove back to Springfield on Wednesday to see Morris honored with Liberty Mutual’s LifeSaver Award.

“Just think within yourself what it takes to be the one to jump to action,” said Red Lobster executive Bob Carver.

“I’m touched anytime someone makes a difference for someone else, and today I see that wife and husband together, so I know she made a big difference for that family, and her Red Lobster family makes a big difference with her, too,” said Gloria Morris, Autumn Morris’ mother.

This was the first time that Dan White really met Autumn Morris that he remembers. He says she invited him and his wife to the ceremony and they were happy to support her.

Red Lobster staff also gave the Whites a meal on the house that they could stay and finish in good health.

Keith Kelly was about 10 minutes into his first shift as an employee in the kitchen at Hy-Vee Food Store in Fremont when he noticed that something wasn’t quite right.

Keith Kelly the Saviour

Kelly had just returned from emptying the trash Monday afternoon when he saw an 87-year-old man sitting in the dining area.

“His color looked really bad and he just didn’t look good,” Kelly said. “It was one of those things that just catches your attention.”

So Kelly jumped into action.

After the man started vomiting, Kelly picked him up and laid the man on the floor, turning him over onto his side so he wouldn’t aspirate.

“All of a sudden he just went south,” Kelly said.

Kelly and others checked the man, but found that he had no pulse and wasn’t breathing.

“I automatically ripped open his shirt and began CPR,” Kelly said.

Kelly’s actions are being credited with helping save the man’s life.

John Reiger of Cedar Bluffs was eating at Hy-Vee when the events began to unfold.

“All I saw was this guy (Kelly) come out of the kitchen and he just took over,” Reiger said. “It was almost like he didn’t think about what he was doing. He just did it.

“This is stuff you see on TV. You don’t see it in real life.”

Reiger said he was expecting the worst until Kelly began performing CPR.

“I witnessed somebody going from dead to alive,” Reiger said. “It amazed me. This man saved a life.”

Members of the Fremont Fire Department arrived at Hy-Vee and took the elderly man, who was in cardiac arrest, to Fremont Area Medical Center.

Capt. Todd Bernt said by the time they left Hy-Vee, the man was up and talking to the rescue personnel.

Bernt said Kelly’s actions likely played a large role in that.

“Early CPR gets blood flowing to the vital organs, to the brain and the heart, and keeps oxygen flowing,” Bernt said. “Early CPR is vital to survive cardiac arrest.”

Kelly doesn’t consider his actions heroic, but feels fortunate to have been working at the time.

“It’s like being in the right place at the right time,” he said. “It’s like I was supposed to be there. … The outcome could have been different, but all I can say is I just thank God that I was here.”

Kelly also is thankful that he has been trained to perform CPR. He was certified as an emergency medical technician in the mid-1980s in Omaha and has continued to become certified in CPR every two years even though he never expected to have to put the training to use.

“If I didn’t have the training, I wouldn’t have known what to do,” Kelly said.

After witnessing Monday’s events, Reiger said he has been motivated to become trained in CPR.

“To see this, to witness this, was a life-changing experience for me,” Reiger said.

A man who went into cardiac arrest while dining at a mall restaurant was saved by quick-thinking bystanders and security guards using a portable defibrillator, officials said Friday.

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The 35 year-old man was eating lunch at the Red Robin restaurant in the Westfield Connecticut Post mall last Saturday when his heart stopped, said Capt. Chris Zak of the Milford Fire Department. When the customer collapsed, restaurant manager Curtis Kilburn called 911 and the mall security office.

Two bystanders began performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the man, who had no pulse or heartbeat, Zak said. Jeanne DeMello, a nurse, and Mark Kipstein, an off-duty New York City firefighter, started the chest compressions within moments of the man’s collapse.

Security guards Brian Carlson and Michael Todd used the portable defibrillator to deliver one measured shock that returned the man’s heart to a normal rhythm, Zak said.

Mall spokesman Greg Udchitz said Friday that the mall owns at least two of the units, and the security guards and other Westfield personnel are trained in how to use them as well as in basic first aid and CPR. “It is very rare that we see a medical emergency like this, where we get to use our training,” he said.

Milford Fire Department paramedics arrived within four minutes, Zak said, and provided advanced life support services and oxygen. The man, who was not identified, was transported by ambulance to Milford Hospital.

Staff at a south Edmonton restuarant are being praised for some quick thinking that recently saved a customer’s life.

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Randy Reimer was having dinner at Boston Pizza in South Common two weeks ago when he suffered from a heart attack.

Darlene Zuk the Saviour

“First bite, felt very tired, sat back in the chair thinking ‘Something’s wrong,’” Reimer said.

That’s all he remembers before waking up on the floor after Boston Pizza staff sprung into action to help him.

Manager Darlene Zuk called 911 and got another employee to grab a defibrillator while nurses at a nearby table performed CPR on Reimer, who at that time had fallen off his chair to the ground.

“We were very lucky, I truly believe that nurses are angels, and we had three angels in our restaurant that night that jumped up,” Zuk said.

The defibrillator was needed, and emergency crews later said that it had saved Reimer’s life.

“I worked in the fire services for over 20 years with Toronto fire services and I’ve saved people with defibrillators but when you hear of this it makes your hair on your arms stand up, its a wonderful thing,” said John Collie with Rescue 7.

Reimer was also on hand to give his thanks, overwhelmed over the heroics from staff and the nearby nurses who had all helped save his life.

“It’s not a lot you can really put into words.”

“I was really proud of my team and everyone did what they had to do in order to help someone who really needed our help at that moment,” Zuk said.

“That was a pretty great day to write in that in the manager’s log… What did you do today? Oh, we were busy and we saved a life.”