First Aid Corps

When 67-year-old Gary Kershner went into cardiac arrest during his grandson’s baseball practice at Hillside Elementary in April, Cottage Grove residents Darlene Hardwick, Bill Larsen and Terri Zebronsky rushed to his side, performing CPR.

Diane Janski called 911 while others administered CPR. She then comforted Kershner’s grandson and drove him to the hospital, waiting with the boy until his parents arrived. Dean Larkin provided emergency responders with information about Kershner prior to his collapse.

A Cottage Grove officer arrived on the scene roughly two minutes after Janski dialed 911 and restarted Kershner’s heart with an external defibrillator.

Cottage Grove public safety director Craig Woolery said without the quick thinking of the five honored individuals, the outcome of the April incident could have been different.

Kershner, present at the ceremony along with his family, was grateful for their actions.

“I’m sure glad they knew what they were doing,” he said. “And I’m thankful for them very much.”

The middle-aged St Joseph’s Doora-Barefield club member was watching his son play an U21 hurling championship clash with east Clare side Clonlara at Wolfe Tones GAA club in Shannon when he collapsed unexpectedly.

Two nurses and several other bystanders quickly ran to the man’s aid. One nurse determined that the man had suffered a cardiac arrest and sent another person to the clubhouse to raise the alarm and find a defibrillator.

The nurses, one from each club, promptly began to administer cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and used the defibrillator to revive the man. Soon afterwards, ambulance paramedics arrived at the scene and began treating the patient.

St Joseph’s club secretary Mr Dan O’Connor said: “We are very grateful that there were so many people there to help but we have to compliment the Wolfe Tones club for having such a vital piece of lifesaving equipment when it was needed. Having a defibrillator in a club, as we have ourselves, is absolutely essential and every club in the country should have one.”

The Wolfe Tones club was presented with their defibrillator almost two years ago after money was raised by the students of the nearby St Conaire’s primary school.

Groundsman Mike Kelly, one of those trained to used the defibrillator, said: “I was down at the dressing room end working on the scoreboard when someone came running up looking for the defibrillator. Ours is strategically located so that it can be quickly accessed from the bar area, the dressing rooms or any part of the club. I grabbed it and handed it over and two nurses carried out CPR on the man. It definitely saved that man’s life.”

Keith Folkard, 50, a insurance underwriter, who was sitting in the Jarrold stand, was taken ill just minutes after kick-off of the match against Brentford.

But two GPs and Simon Bowles, a cardiology specialist nurse from the N&N, were sitting nearby and rushed to his aid.

They carried out life support and used one of Carrow Road’s automated electronic defibrillators, before an ambulance crew took Mr Folkard to hospital.

Mr Folkard said: “I’m extremely grateful for what they did and for all the care I have received in hospital since. I feel very humbled.”

The patient’s brother, Brian, from Upper Stoke, near Poringland, was also at the game, and both are season ticketholders, although Keith now lives near Southend.

Brian said: “Without the help he received at the ground I think we would have been attending his funeral. I cannot fault those guys at all.”

Gordon Crozier of North River went into cardiac arrest during the second period of his grandson’s Atom ‘A’ hockey game at the APM Centre.

Steve Stapleton the Saviour

Three spectators at the game quickly scooted into action.

Steve Stapleton, 59, of Charlottetown was among the impromptu trio that came to Crozier’s aid.

Trained in CPR (he had his most recent refresher course just last year), Stapleton started performing CPR after Crozier “started turning blue” and a pulse could not be found.

Stapleton did chest compressions on Crozier, a long-time friend, as another man blew air into Crozier’s lungs.

One of those who sprang to help Crozier was cameraman Steve Stepleton of CBC Charlottetown.

While Stapleton performed CPR for “what seemed likes hours” but in reality was more like five minutes, a woman named Rizpah MacPhee ran to get the rink’s defibrillator.

‘”We gave Gordon one jolt and he came around,” Stapleton said. “Then we kept administering the CPR, monitoring his breathing and watching for a pulse, and we just did that, with help from the others, until the EMS arrived and took him to hospital.”

“I don’t know if the ambulance could have got here fast enough for the person to survive, but the defibrillator did its job,” Donna Butler, APM Centre manager, said Monday.

Crozier was rushed to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Wade Crozier later reported that his father was resting comfortably at the QEH. Wade offered “many thanks to all who helped out as without your help and the defibrillator at the rink, this would be a very different message.”

Stapleton, a soft-spoken and humble man, wasn’t too eager to be pegged as a hero.

“It wasn’t just me,” he said of the quick response to a life-threatening situation. I was just a part of it. And thank God Gordon is still alive. I have known Gordon for years.”

Steve Stapleton believes everybody should have CPR training.

“You hope you never have to use it but at least if something happens, you know how to use it and it could save somebody’s life,” he said.

Witnesses on Wednesday night said a fan who was in the school gym to watch Lenape and Kingsway compete in the holiday tournament collapsed about two minutes after the start of the game.

The man was helped onto the court surface where the game was stopped and rescue professionals in the stands rushed to his side.

Lenape school resource officer Pat Robey of the Medford Police Department and fellow officer Andy Haggerty, who performs the same duties at Shawnee, were among the first to reach the stricken fan.

Lenape athletic trainer Bill Von Leer ran across the court carrying the portable defibrillator that all Lenape District schools have on-site.

From the stands came Dr. Dave Fischman, who has a son on the Indians’ junior varsity team, and Luann Robertson, a registered nurse.

For close to 10 minutes, the five used all their abilities, including the defibrillator, oxygen and cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, to revive the unconscious fan.

Shortly before Medford Police, Medford Emergency Services and the Mobile Intensive Care Unit arrived, the silent gymnasium heard the words: “You’re all right. You’re going to be all right.”

The man regained consciousness and was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. His identity and condition were unknown Wednesday night.

“It was amazing to be here to watch all these guys do their jobs,” Lenape principal Tony Cattani said. “We’ve had the defibrillators in the district for about five years now. We’ve had people and classes when they graduate donate them to the schools. This is the first time we’ve had to use one here and to my knowledge, none of the other district schools has had to use one. All our administrators are trained with it. Some of our teachers are trained and all of our coaches are trained for it.”

Lenape’s athletic trainer also was pleased with the response.

“It was very nice the way everybody worked together,” Von Leer said. “The two officers, Pat and Andy, and Dr. Fischman and Mrs. Robertson all seemed to know their jobs perfectly. It just worked out really well.”

We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore.

Keith and Survivor Wife Angela Glotzbach

Tana Bolus, an emergency room nurse at Norton Audubon Hospital in Louisville, was arriving to watch her son play at Floyds Knobs Community Center on Monday when an adult collapsed in the stands.

Dr. Tom Harris, the Floyd County medical officer and an emergency room physician, also was present. His wife, who is a nurse, and two New Albany police officers were there too.

But Harris said it was the defibrillator more than the assembled medical and emergency expertise that “probably made a significant difference in the outcome of the case.”

It was Bolus, along with neighbor Kristy Smith, who used a $5,200 grant from the Horseshoe Foundation of Floyd County to purchase five defibrillators and distribute them to local ballparks.

And Bolus was there Monday night and helped put one into use to get the spectator’s heart going again.

Bolus said the device gave the person “a fighting chance.”

“I never expected we’d be using it that soon, that’s for sure,” she said.

The spectator was taken to Floyd Memorial Hospital.

Update

Glotzbach, 37, an active woman who felt fine, was in the bleachers on April 20 in Floyds Knobs watching her 7-year-old son Cory play baseball. Then her heart stopped, without warning or apparent cause.

Glotzbach spent nine days in the hospital and, as a precaution, has had a defibrillator and a pacemaker implanted. She looks good, regains strength, smiles like she won the lottery and made it recently to one of Cory’s end-of-the-year school events. She’s also the mother of daughter Maci, 10.

“I can’t feel sorry for myself,” Glotzbach said. “There are people out there worse off. I just feel I’m lucky.”

“It was the best-case scenario, that’s for sure,” Bolus said. She could tell Glotzbach was tough, a fighter, that night at the game, as her heart was shocked again and again into behaving itself.

We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore.

Eric McDonnell, an athletic trainer, said it happened at about 12:25 p.m., 35 minutes before tip-off. A relative of the man noticed he was having trouble breathing and, with assistance of ushers, brought him to a “backstaging area” at court level and laid him on an exercise mat.

A university police officer performed emergency breathing, an usher applied the pads from the defibrillator device to the man’s chest and another performed chest compressions. Within minutes, the device detected a “shockable rhythm” and restored the man’s heartbeat.

“I don’t think anyone in the crowd actually realized what happened,” McDonnell said. The entire process “worked just like it’s supposed to.”

“I feel that all those involved with this incident showed extreme professionalism in taking care of this man in his moment of need,” said Frank Hoelzeman, an events assistant who was on the phone with emergency medics throughout the incident.

We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore.

Nurse Stacie Oxman

Oxman stepped out of her bathroom stall around 12:15 p.m. when she saw a woman lying on the ground, her daughter leaning over her and yelling, “Mom! MOM! Please, Mom!” and, “Can somebody please help my Mom!”

Gruenschlaeger had no pulse. Her head tilted back as she struggled to breathe. Her heart had gone into an irregular rhythm.

“Get me a defibrillator!” Oxman called out.

“I was scared to death,” Oxman said. “This is what I do for a living, but normally I have monitors and equipment and a whole team of people helping me. Here I was all alone with only my skills and my gut instincts.”

Minutes later, Cincinnati Police Sgt. Eric Franz arrived on the scene and radioed for a defibrillator, which is used to restore the heart to its normal rhythm after cardiac arrest.

The first time, the patient didn’t respond to the defibrillator, so Oxman continued CPR. She shocked her again, praying hard — and this time, Gruenschlaeger started breathing.

“That’s when I started to cry,” Oxman said. “That’s when I knew she would make it.” Oxman is thrilled “that it all worked, everything I’ve been trained to do.”

“We’ve known for years these things save lives,” concurred Franz. “It’s a really amazing computer. You put pads on a patient, press a button and it analyzes the heart rhythm and it doesn’t shock them unless their heart isn’t beating properly.”

Gruenschlaeger remembers very little of her ordeal: “I just remember washing my hands, and nothing else until they smacked me around in the ambulance.”

“I always believed nurses are special people, but she was a guardian angel to me,” Gruenschlaeger said.

Her first conversation with Oxman was emotional. “You saved my life,” she said. “There’s no other way to say it.”