First Aid Corps

Allan Robertson would almost certainly be dead today had he’d suffered his sudden cardiac arrest somewhere else.

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The 57-year-old St. Albert father of three collapsed at a pickup soccer game Nov. 14 in the Edmonton Soccer Centre South. His heart stopped, cutting off the blood’s supply of oxygen and nutrients to his brain. At a time when his risk of brain damage and death climbed by the second, there was an automated external defibrillator (AED) nearby and one of Robertson’s teammates was an off-duty emergency medical technician who knew how to use it.

“I remember warming up and joking with one of my buddies, ‘Gee, look at us. We’re the oldest two here,’ ” Robertson said Friday at a news conference on the field where it happened.

“The next thing I know, I wake up in the hospital.”

Matt Austin, 37, was in net at the other end of the indoor field when he saw Robertson lying face-down on the ground.

“Since I didn’t see the play, I guess I assumed initially it was a head injury,” said the Edmonton man, who has been an EMT for three years and works in Camrose.

Matt Austin the Saviour and Allan Robertson the Survivor

Austin quickly realized Robertson wasn’t breathing. He started cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and told teammates to call 911 and get the defibrillator the soccer centre keeps near the front door.

“I attached it right away and gave him his first shock after it advised me to do that,” Austin said. “I didn’t feel any pulse or breathing or anything like that again, so I started compressions, did a couple rounds of that, and he took two breaths and his eyes opened for a second.”

After two more rounds of CPR, Robertson gasped for air and opened his eyes. “Within 30 seconds of that, he was actually trying to get off the turf here. He was trying to get up. I said, ‘No, Al, you’ve got to stay down. Stay where you’re at. The ambulance is on its way.’ ”

Approximately four minutes passed between the time Robertson collapsed and when Austin revived him and he tried to get up. The ambulance arrived a few minutes after that, Austin said.

“The brain doesn’t go very long without oxygen. Three to five minutes, they say, is the average, so without early intervention with either CPR or AED or, ideally, both, the possibility of recovery is a lot less.”

Austin said his training took over during the dramatic events. “CPR, I’ve done many times but I’ve never had positive results out of it. By the time an ambulance gets there, if CPR hasn’t been initiated, we’re outside that three- to five-minute window just about always. If CPR hadn’t been started by the so-called bystander, the results would have been a lot worse.”

Robertson was taken to the Grey Nuns Hospital where he had surgery to implant a defibrillator that keeps his heart pumping properly.

Doctors told him the cardiac arrest was caused by a heart abnormality called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which Robertson might have inherited. Robertson doesn’t know yet if he’ll be able to play soccer again, something he’s done twice a week for the past 20 years.

He had no indication of heart trouble before the cardiac arrest.

“I’m just so thankful to be here with everyone and I’m so thankful to Matt,” Robertson said. “Fortunately, Matt was here that day.”

Roberson is convinced he would have died had his cardiac arrest happened during another soccer game he plays every week.

“I play soccer with another group as well, on Friday night, and if this had happened at that venue, they don’t have a defibrillator there. I asked the guys after I visited there, ‘Does anybody know CPR?’ and of the guys that were there, not one knew CPR.”

Robertson’s wife, Karen, said her husband had “a real guardian angel with him that day.” The incident has helped the Robertsons focus on what’s really important in life, such as friends and family, she said.

Austin said he is grateful he could make such a difference to the lives of so many people who love Robertson, including Robertson’s wife and three adult kids.

“It’s a little overwhelming,” Austin said. “It’s an incredible feeling. It’s the most important thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

QUICK-thinking staff have been hailed heroes after saving the life of a footballer who suffered a heart attack during a match.

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Rob Latham was close to death after collapsing while playing with a group of friends at the Robin Park Powerleague Soccerdome.

The 35-year-old from Reepham Close, Winstanley, was not breathing and his heart had stopped, but he was brought back to life by first aid-trained staff before emergency services arrived.

Resuscitation techniques, including the in-house defibrillator, had to be used twice before the professionals took over.

Family of Mr Latham have been maintaining a bedside vigil at Wigan Infirmary since he suffered the cardiac arrest at 8.30pm on Monday, during a privately-organised match at the Stadium Way centre.

His condition is now said to be stable.

Dave McNally, community resuscitation manager for North West Ambulance Service, said: “Thanks to the quick actions of trained staff and a public Automated External Defibrillator (AED) machine – which was placed there as part of the Community Resuscitation Scheme spearheaded by the North West Ambulance Service – the patient was shocked twice and successfully resuscitated before being transported to hospital.

“This incident highlights the importance of quick intervention when an individual goes into cardiac arrest, and supports NWAS’s aim to have defibrillators placed in all public areas where there is an increased risk of cardiac arrest.

“The trust has trained all Powerleague staff in the North West in resuscitation techniques, and has installed defibrillators in all of their sites for occasions such as this.

“When there is a need to use them, it can be a frightening time for all concerned, but the staff in Powerleague Wigan acted extremely professionally and remembered their training well.”

Firefighters from Wigan were attending a skip fire behind the DW Stadium at the time, and were flagged down by someone at the Soccerdome.

Watch manager Michael Wilding said: “Fire Service trauma technicians rushed to the scene, where we found staff at the centre administering first-aid.

“When we arrived, staff at the centre where doing a remarkable job, with trained first-aiders at the scene.

“I have little doubt the man’s condition would have been far worse if those staff hadn’t been trained in first-aid.

A Powerleague spokesman said: “Powerleague are proud of how the staff at our Wigan branch responded to this emergency on Monday night, we are also very thankful for the support we receive from North West Ambulance Service across our branches in the area.

“Our best wishes and thoughts are with the player and his family.”

No one was looking at him when Paul Coyne’s heart gave out on him a week ago in the middle of a soccer game.

Coyne, 49, was playing an 8:45 p.m. match at Kemp Field in Folsom.

He’d just been subbed back in after a breather and the ball was down at the other end of the long field.

“As I ran onto the field, I said, ‘I don’t feel too well,’ and that’s all I remember.

As in: That’s all he remembers between Oct. 27, when he collapsed, and Wednesday, when his head began to clear after surgery to implant a heart defibrillator.

“Today I feel great,” Coyne said Thursday. “According to my wife, yesterday and the day before I was pretty incoherent.”

That he’s alive at all is thanks to the fact that two of his Turn Verein soccer teammates – unbeknown to Coyne – were an emergency medical technician and a Mercy General Hospital cardiac rehab program director.

“None of them (his cardiac patients) ever collapsed on me in the middle of exercise,” said Ken Rogaski, the rehab coordinator, who did chest compressions to keep Coyne’s heart going until Folsom Fire Department paramedics arrived.

“I’m so glad he said something,” said Rogaski. “Everyone was looking in the exact opposite direction.”

Rogaski’s quick actions make Coyne a rarity, a person who had a heart attack outside the hospital and survived.

“Their chances of surviving are less than 5 percent,” said Bryan Gardner, a spokesman for Mercy Hospitals.

Rogaski and another team member heard Coyne breathing, but found his pulse was irregular and weak.

Rogaski, trained in an advanced version of CPR, started the compressions.

Coyne was taken to Mercy Folsom where he was stabilized and his body cooled – a method used in recent years to give the body’s organs a better chance of surviving after severe cardiac problems.

Then he was transferred to Mercy General in Sacramento for surgery to install a cardioverter-defibrillator.

His family lives in Placerville, but his wife, Marjorie, and 18-year-old daughter Paris had to rush back from Mexico City, where Paris had a modeling job. He also has a son, John, 16.

Coyne thought he was in good shape, playing soccer three or four times a week.

His wife reminded him, “You have a history of passing out.” He would get light-headed getting up from bed.

“Not always,” Coyne said, knowing he should’ve had it checked out before.

His teammates learned something from the incident, too. The day after the attack, Rogaski ran into another teammate at a youth soccer game.

“He had already enrolled in CPR training,” Rogaski said.

“They just need to know how to do that,” Gardner said.

“Actually, I’m going to have to take a CPR class,” Coyne said.

He hopes to be back at work in a week or so. “I’m a graphic designer. It doesn’t take much to sit down and open a computer.” His online profile at his firm describes him as a “soccer fiend.”

He feels blessed to be doing anything.

“I wouldn’t be here if Ken wasn’t on our team,” he said. “I’d be dead.”

Last Wednesday, Ali Askari was dead for about 15-minutes.

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“As I’m sitting here talking to you, I really shouldn’t be,” said Askari, soccer player.

Askari, 51, was playing with his adult soccer team in Balch Springs when his heart stopped.

“All of a sudden I felt dizzy,” Askari recalled. “I felt my knee gave up. And I was just getting closer to the ground. But I didn’t feel the hitting. I remember that I wanted to keep going but I couldn’t.”

Surveillance video from Premier Park in Balch Springs showed the fuzzy mob of team-mates gathering around his fallen body on the soccer field.

Two doctors on the team started CPR.

It was a player on the other team who offered a life-saving assist..

“And I yelled out to them,” said Chris LeBlanc, who played for the Balch Springs team, “Hey do you need the defibrillator?

Surveillance video captures LeBlanc running to the complex building, retrieving the AED, and handing it off to one of Askari’s teammates.

Unlike UIL sanctioned youth events, automated external defibrillators or AED’s are not required for recreational or adult sports leagues.

The ‘Over 40′ aged players at Premier Park in Balch Springs insisted on having an AED handy.

“The majority of our players are older,” says Larry Hall, president of Premier Park. “And they requested that we have a difib here just in case. It’s one of those things where you hope you never need to use, but you hope you have it just in case you do.”

“The first attempt I hear did not work,” says Askari. “Nothing happened. Second attempt, I came back.”

Two days later, Askari had a defibrillator implanted surgically.

While he may never be cleared to play soccer again, he’s expected to recover fully.

He was given a signed game ball signed by members of both teams who witnessed his collapse.

Ali Askari believes the only reason he avoided an unexpected and ultimate red card is because there were two doctors and an AED at the game.

Mark Pie-Truckies, an Edmonton soccer dad is recovering in hospital after some quick-thinking parents came to his aid with life-saving equipment after he had a heart attack.

The man was taking part in a soccer game that pitted parents against kids at the West End Soccer Centre when he collapsed on the field after suffering a heart attack.

Some of the parents taking part grabbed a portable defibrillator and performed CPR.

“I had just finished my CPR training, a refresher course, about a month ago, so I just remembered what I was supposed to do – attached the machine and let the machine walk me through it,” said parent Karen Gwozd-Cornish.

Paramedics are crediting Gwozd-Cornish and others for their swift action, they say the man was already breathing on his own and was conscious by the time they arrived.

The man is still in hospital undergoing several tests, but his family says he is expected to make a full recovery.