First Aid Corps

A 16-year-old girl collapsed in cardiac arrest during cheerleader tryouts at North Hunterdon High School on Tuesday night and was flown to Morristown Memorial Hospital after receiving CPR from police, school staff and a parent.

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She was “awake and doing OK” at the hospital this morning, according to school spokeswoman Maren Smagala.

Veronica Conly the Saviour

The school this afternoon issued a statement congratulating the coaches and cheerleaders “for acting quickly and bravely during cheerleading tryouts last night.”

As part of tryouts, the girls were jogging through the hallways of the school when the junior collapsed in a second-floor hallway and went into a seizure, Clinton Township police said. Other girls reported noticing that she was experiencing shortness of breath before she collapsed.

The school told what happened next: Coach Veronica Conly responded quickly to the cheerleader and told cheerleader Lauren Froschhauser to call 9-1-1 on her cell phone. Head Coach Tiffany Slowinski used her two-way radio to advise trainer Karen Korbul of the emergency.

Allison Arth the Saviour

Conly found that the girl had no pulse and began performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on the her. She did about seven cycles of CPR before Coach Allison Arth arrived to help. Arth used the automated external defibrillator (AED) to help revive the girl’s heart. Kelly Strauss, the mother of another girl at the tryouts, also helped with the effort, police said.

“I just kept saying, ‘Don’t die on me, Heather,’ “ Conly said.

By then, Clinton Township Police Officer John Tiger arrived and continued CPR on the cheerleader until the emergency medical personnel arrived. Clinton rescue squad and the Hunterdon Medical Center paramedics arrived and took over reviving the teen.

“Then the paramedics came and I just walked away and collapsed, and I cried,” said Conly. “I was just hoping she would be alive.”

The State Police Northstar medical airlift helicopter landed around 7:15 p.m. and flew the patient to Morristown Hospital. Around 8 p.m., Slowinski confirmed with the teen’s parents that she was in stable condition.

“Thanks to all the people that were on site helping during the emergency,” Principal Mike Hughes and Athletic Director John Deutsch said in the school’s statement.

“We are very proud at the response and attention that was demonstrated by the coaches and cheerleaders. You’ve demonstrated Lion pride!”

Updates

“I consider myself incredibly lucky that Ms. Conly and Coach Arth were there for me,” said Heather Skillman of Union Township in an e-mail interview Tuesday. “Without them, I don’t know what could have and would have happened. North Hunterdon has such wonderful, trained staff… I owe my good condition to them.”

Heather Skillman the Survivor

Heather doesn’t remember much about what happened. “All I can remember is running through the second-floor hallways at North, and then everything went black,” she said. “The next memory I have is a vague feeling of being in the helicopter. I didn’t even know what happened until I woke up in the hospital.”

“So far, I’m doing well,” Skillman said in an e-mail interview on Tuesday. “Recovery has been fast and if anything, I’m just tired. The doctors here are wonderful and I meet new teams every day. They’ve done a lot of tests to figure out why it happened, and soon I’ll be getting surgery to put in an implantable cardioverter defibrillator to prevent it from happening again,” she said.

“I believe everything happens for a reason,” Conly said. “I was in the right place… I would hope that anybody would do the same for me. I just did what I was trained to do.”

Quick action by race watchers and several Tampa paramedics helped saved the life of a runner who collapsed this morning during the Gasparilla Distance Classic.

Around 8:25 this morning the 54-year-old man fell near the corner of Bayshore and El Prado Boulevards. According to Tampa Fire Rescue officials, the man’s heart had stopped and he was not breathing.

Several bystanders immediately began performing CPR. They started yelling there was a man down, and paramedics Mike Campbell and George Nelson, who were nearby, came to the man’s aid within a minute.

They hooked him up to a defibrillator and were able to get his heart pumping again, officials said. Within a few minutes, the unidentified runner began moving around as he was being loaded into an ambulance.

By the time they arrived at Tampa General Hospital, he was talking again, officials said. He suffered serious facial injuries from the fall, but otherwise was OK, according to Captain Bill Wade.

An assistant athletic trainer and clinical instructor at Central College, Chris Viesselman was closing the training room after track and field practice March 29 when two athletes rushed in saying someone was asking for help in the racquetball court.

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Viesselman and the athletes found Ken Nollen, a 63-year-old Pella resident and avid racquetball player, collapsed on the floor.

“He looked like he was convulsing so I thought he’d hit his head and was having a seizure,” Viesselman said. “I monitored him and at first I felt his pulse but then it went away.”

Viesselman sent the athletes to call 911 while Dustin Briggs, an assistant athletic trainer and clinical instructor at Central, joined Viesselman to perform CPR and use the AED.

The pair revived Nollen with one shock of the AED and he was taken to by ambulance to the Pella Regional Health Center. When his heart rhythm stabilized he was transported to the Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines where a stint was put in.

“It probably only took five minutes but it was a very intense five minutes,” Viesselman said. “It was the first person I’d seen not breathing, without a pulse or heart rate.”

Nollen was grateful to be in the right place at the right time.

“It’s pretty miraculous,” Nollen said. “All these things—where the heart attack happened, the trainers who may not normally be there so late, a defibrillator on site—were evidently planned by God to keep me alive a while longer.

“If this would have happened anywhere else there probably would have been too much response time for me to go without permanent damage or death,” Nollen said.

Nollen was able to celebrate his birthday two days later and he resumed playing racquetball about six weeks after the heart attack. Today he has no heart damage.

Viesselman had a strangely similar experience on a hot and humid afternoon on May 25, less than 60 days later.

After one mile on Central’s outdoor track, Steve McCann couldn’t get his breathing right. He knew spring-semester classes had ended but took his chances on getting inside Kuyper Gymnasium to reach a water fountain.

“Luckily one of the doors was open because they were refinishing the gymnasium floor,” said McCann, a 54-year-old Pella resident who jogs about three days a week.

On his way to the fountain McCann stopped and lay down, because the coolness of the floor felt good. Eventually he got a drink and lay back down on the floor.

That’s where Central’s athletics facilities operations coordinator Duane Houser found McCann.

“I was at the exercise science building across the street and a plumber needed a cart from the fieldhouse,” Houser said. “I saw McCann on the floor and asked how he was doing as I went around the corner.

“As I unlocked the fieldhouse door I looked back at McCann,” Houser said. “He was flailing his legs back and forth so I went back and he asked for an aspirin.

Houser, a former 22-year member of Pella law enforcement, has seen a lot of situations requiring an AED and has used one himself six times. He recognized something wasn’t right and went to the training room to see if anyone was around. He found Viesselman and Leslie Duinink, Central’s head athletic trainer and clinical instructor.

“It was a stroke of good luck we were there,” Duinink said. “We were supposed to have a golf outing as part of our Iowa Conference athletic trainers’ meeting, but there was a big downpour earlier, leaving standing water on the course. Chris and I just happened to be in the office.”

Showing signs of heat exhaustion, McCann was taken to the training room and put in a cold whirlpool.

“Initially he started to get better,” Viesselman said. “He was able to speak easier and he said he was feeling better but then all of a sudden he went into cardiac arrest.”

Holding a towel around McCann to keep him from sliding down in the tank, Houser helped get McCann out of the water before calling 911 as Viesselman started CPR and Duinink got the AED.

One shock stabilized McCann. The paramedics took him to the Pella Regional Health Center where he was transported to Mercy in Des Moines to have a stint placed.

“I can’t say enough for Chris, Leslie and Duane,” McCann said. “With their knowledge and staying calm under pressure, they’re just remarkable people to do something like that.”

Central’s staff members can’t recall any previous a life-threatening situations requiring the use of CPR and an AED, much less two in two months.

“I’m glad we were able to effect a positive change and it all worked out in the end,” Duinink said. ”The ambulance crew tells us it doesn’t always go that way so the fact we’re 2-for-2 here is pretty good.”

Each year the athletic training staff and students review first aid, emergency response, CPR and AED training.

“Some students think it’s ridiculous we make them do things over and over but there’s a reason,” Duinink said. “It’s about repetition so when you’re in a situation, your training will kick in and you’ll do it right.”

The students still in the training room when Nollen went down were prepared.

“The students really did a lot of work, especially calling the ambulance and getting the paramedics to the racquetball court,” Viesselman said. “They were very professional and handled it well.”

Briggs agreed the students controlled the situation.

“They didn’t really flinch or freak out, they just did what they were supposed to,” Briggs said. “I think it reaffirms what a strong program we have.”

“It really was a team effort providing care for those two people,” Viesselman said. “Everybody takes a different role and brings a level of experience. It goes much smoother and at the end of the experience you’re proud to be a part of that type of team.”

Harvey Rivera left work on July 31, ready to enjoy a jog home.The 49-year-old fitness instructor at Habilitation Assistance Corporation in Hyannis trekked from Main Street in Hyannis to Old Town House Road in West Yarmouth, figuring out which roads to take as he ran.

Harvey Rivera the Survivor

He was feeling fine but knew he had a long way to run to get to his place in Harwich.

So he stopped and started stretching. The next thing he knew, he was in Cape Cod Hospital. He had suffered a heart attack and fallen to the ground, unconscious and without a pulse.

a female nurse and a passing motorist saw the unconscious Rivera lying on the exercise trail on Old Town House Road. They called 911 and started CPR.

Yarmouth police Lt. Steven Xiarhos was off duty driving through town when he saw the scene. He said Rivera was gray, with his eyes rolled up to the back of his head.

“I’m telling you, he looked very dead. … In 32 years of police work, I have never seen a person come back to life like that,” said Xiarhos, who put out a call for additional help.

Yarmouth police Officer James Cheverie arrived, taking out an electronic defibrillator that Yarmouth police keep in their cruisers.

The officers administered a shock and continued CPR. Another officer and a department of natural resources officer helped out as well. Yarmouth fire personnel took him to the hospital.

“It’s great training and citizenship and teamwork,” Xiarhos said.

On Tuesday, he was shaken emotionally to find out the passing motorist who helped him, Kevin Wilson of Yarmouthport and Dedham, died last month from a heart attack.

“God called him back home,” Rivera said.

The news of Wilson’s death, along with his own close call, has energized Rivera to spread the word about the importance of CPR training and having a defibrillator nearby.

And he keeps his focus on his workplace, where he helps people with special needs get exercise. “I want to give back,” he said.

He said people still ask him if he saw a bright light before being resuscitated.

“I didn’t see a light but I woke up to my guardian angels,” he said.

Boer, 73, was recovering on Friday evening in the critical care unit at Saint Thomas Hospital. He had a heart attack Thursday morning while running in the Boulevard Bolt, a Thanksgiving tradition in Belle Meade.

Germain Boer the Survivor

“I think everything is going to be fine,” said son Bob Boer. “He is awake and I was able to speak with him earlier. I told him some of the news reports were putting him at between 50 and 60 years old and he just laughed.”

The elder Boer, a professor of accounting and director of the Owen Entrepreneurship Center at Vanderbilt University, runs the Bolt every year, his son said.

He’s very active and healthy,” said Bob Boer. “He goes to the gym at Vanderbilt in the mornings and has his routine with his gym team, and he runs on the greenway.

“I just thank God this happened with 8,000 people instead of when he was off by himself somewhere.”

Germain Boer was about a mile and a half into the Boulevard Bolt when he had the heart attack, said Troy Sparks, who was running the race for the first time alongside his wife, Beth.

The Sparkses are both registered nurses — he’s in the operating room at StoneCrest, she’s a nurse at John Overton High School.

Boer’s luck began with the Sparkses being about 5 feet away when he collapsed.

“We thought he had tripped, so I went to see if he was OK and saw that he wasn’t breathing,” said Troy Sparks, who immediately began CPR. “He was purple and bleeding. He’d fallen facedown and cut his face.
“He didn’t have a pulse.”

Within seconds, half a dozen other runners were helping in the CPR effort.

A minute later, Boer got lucky again. Dr. Corey Slovis joined the crew.

When it comes to emergency medicine, Slovis is among the best. He is chairman of the department of emergency medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and medical director for the Nashville Fire Department and Nashville International Airport.

“I was running, and I saw a number of people off to the side,” said Slovis, whose family has run in the Bolt for the past 10 years. “When I looked closer, I saw someone doing compressions, and that got my attention.”

Slovis, a doctor for about 30 years, said he was in awe by the first responders.

“Saving lives involves just a few things, and those people were doing them perfectly,” he said. “There was no way it could have gone better. The only thing I did was what I do every day.

“What Nashville needs to be proud of is that so many people knew how to do expert compression CPR and they were able to come together and save this man’s life. That’s the real story here.”

As the crew alternated doing compressions, an ambulance arrived and paramedics took over. Slovis went with him to Saint Thomas.

“Moments after I left the room, he had a (heart) rhythm,” he said. “Him getting CPR within moments of collapsing is what saved his life.”

Boer’s son credits Slovis and Sparks with saving his father’s life.

“I’m no hero,” Sparks said. “We just happened to be at the right place at the right time, and there were other people there besides us who jumped in and did a lot.

“I guess it wasn’t Mr. Boer’s time to go.”