First Aid Corps

On Jan. 16, David Feinstein was walking out of Southwest Rec Center on the UF campus in Gainesville when he heard cries for help.

Cook, a building construction professor who has done consulting work for Pulte Homes in Volusia County, had suffered a heart attack.

He had been playing racquetball with one of his students, 24-year-old Brando Fetzek, and a couple other friends when he told them he felt winded, needed to take a break, and would catch them on the next game.

“We finished the game in about five minutes, and as I walked out I saw him laying there,” said Fetzek, a Bradenton resident. “I called out for somebody to call an ambulance and that’s when David and his buddy came running over. David started to perform CPR.”

Several other students joined in, calling 911, alerting Southwest Rec staff to the emergency and helping with the CPR.

They set up a nearby AED — automated external defibrillator — which is used to shock a non-beating heart into starting again.

“We put it on him and we shocked him and we got a pulse, but it wasn’t a very strong one,” Feinstein said. “He took a big gasp of air, but then he wasn’t breathing on his own, so we kept doing CPR.”

Paramedics transported Cook to the hospital where he stayed for five days. Since then, he has made a full recovery and has even returned to the classroom.

But it wouldn’t have happened without prompt action by the students. Reached by e-mail, Cook expressed appreciation for the help he received.

“I owe my life to Brando and David and three other students (Joey Murvis, Karina Reyner and Josh Rubin) who administered CPR and AED. I will be forever grateful to them,” Cook wrote.

Meanwhile, Feinstein’s parents, Larry and Candace of Ormond Beach, are understandably proud because for all his good grades and ambition, his latest accomplishment put everything in a new perspective.

“You want your kids to go out and do good. You couldn’t ask for anything better,” his mother said.

Faith Sendelweck would just like to get back to a normal routine.

She goes back to Jasper Middle School on Monday; however, this once high-energy soccer player is forced to take it a little easier from now on.

Sendelweck says she does not remember much of what happened one Sunday earlier this month.

“All I remember is diving for a ball and throwing it back,” Sendelweck said. “That’s pretty much it.”

She was playing soccer in the gym of Jasper High School.

Sendelweck’s dad was with her and he remembers seeing her collapse into a curtain hanging from the gym ceiling.

Dr. Dean Beckman just happened to be playing basketball with his son there, too, and immediately ran to help.

“(She was) becoming a little bit lethargic, sat down, became unconscious and then lost her pulse,” Dr. Beckman said. “We started CPR.”

Turns out, Sendelweck had a congenital heart condition that no one knew about.

“The rhythm is messed up,” Sendelweck said. “You have a short bump and then a big bump and then another short bump. My short bump drags on too long before my next heart beat and messes it up.”

Sendelweck might not be here had it not been for a defibrillator in the gym.

“You could tell she was starting to respond because her color came back, her lips turned pink and she was moaning,” Dr. Beckman said.

Sendelweck now has her own defibrillator, an IED, implanted in her chest.

Sendelweck is going to be a spokesperson for pediatric IED’s at Kosair’s Children’s Hospital.

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.

Dan Caplis, Denver lawyer best known as a conservative talk-show host and Ches Thompson, a 48-year-old ob/gyn, hadn’t actually met while they and about five other dads were playing football with their kids on the sunny Thanksgiving afternoon.

Thompson suddenly lurched forward and fell on his face.

Dr. Scott Bainbridge, a spine specialist also playing in the game, rolled Thompson onto his back, checked his signs and started CPR in the muddy field.

Dan Caplis the Saviour

Caplis, meantime, bolted to his SUV. By the time he returned with his defibrillator, Thompson was flatlining.

“Stay calm. Follow these voice instructions. Make sure 911 is called now. Begin by exposing patient’s bare chest and torso,” began the recorded voice in the machine.

Caplis followed the cues, placed the pads on Thompson’s chest and stood back as the AED shocked him with power Caplis describes as “ferocious.”

“Waiting to see if he would react, those were the longest seconds of my life,” he says.

Before Caplis and Bainbridge attached the AED to Thompson, he wasn’t breathing and didn’t have a pulse. According to Cherry Hills Village Police it took only one shock from the AED to resuscitate Dr. Thompson.

Thompson regained consciousness quickly and strongly. The father of two boys is expected to make a full recovery at Swedish Medical Center for treatment. .

“I was in the right place at the right time with the right people,” he said Monday.

“It would have felt so incredibly helpless to have been there without the machine,” adds Caplis, co-host of KHOW’s Caplis and Craig Silverman show. He’s had the defibrillator for a year and a half because of another of his jobs, as a little league baseball coach.

“You can know nothing about CPR or AEDs and they can still save somone. They’re that good,” he said.

The freshman football game between Ponderosa and Oak Ridge High School was in the second quarter when Ponderosa head coach Chic Bist collapsed.

Chic Bist the Survivor

But medical professionals sprang into action, performed CPR and were able to revive Bist, according to Ponderosa High School principal Christopher Moore.

The California Interscholastic Federation, which governs high school sports, “require(s) that there’s a doctor on the sidelines,” Moore said. “We had an orthopedic Doctor (Taylor) Vance on the sidelines. We’re fortunate that we also have a defibrillator on campus which was charged and ready. In this circumstance, it needed to be used.”

Vance, who is the team doctor, was aided by a cardiac nurse and another doctor who came out of the stands when Bist fell ill. Bist was transported to the hospital by ambulance.

“This is a time when everything worked well during an emergency,” Moore said. He pointed out that the school’s staff had recently taken CPR courses and training on the use of an updated defibrillator.

Moore said he saw Bist Friday morning and that the veteran coach was doing well and expected to be released from the hospital before the weekend.

Luis Rubio has, a sophomore baseball player at Trimble Tech High School, was running around the track Sept. 10 when he suddenly dropped to the ground.

Luis Rubio the Survivor with Coaches

“I was running, and I felt light-headed and blacked out,” Rubio said.

Coach Tyson Wormsbaker was just feet away.

“He stopped breathing,” Wormsbaker said. “His heart wasn’t beating, just bad stuff; the worst thing you’d want to see.”

The coach didn’t have much time to decide what to do.

“I just reacted,” he said. “I checked his pulse. I checked his breathing. He wasn’t doing either. So I started CPR immediately.”

Coach Mike Garza raced over to help.

“I’ve never been so scared in my life. Watching a 15-year-old struggle like that…” Garza could not finish his sentence as his eyes filled up with tears.

Meanwhile, a third coach, Jason Braud, ran to get an automated external defibrillator, or AED, while summoning others to call 911.

The coaches used the device to administer an electric shock to Rubio’s chest.

“As soon as he was shocked by the AED, it was within a second or two, and he woke up,” Wormsbaker said. “He wanted to get up.”

“When I woke up, I wanted to get up,” Rubio said.

Rubio spent the next 16 days in the hospital and now has a small defibrillator implanted in his chest.

Rubio, who was born with defective heart valves, said the coaches saved his life.

“I’m very thankful for what they did,” he said. “Without them I wouldn’t be here. Without the defibrillator, I wouldn’t be here.”

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.”

Lindsey was in his office around 6:30 a.m. when others on the track got the attention of assistant coach David Arvin.

A man had collapsed during a walk on the Cobb County Lassiter High School ’s track.

Arvin ran out, and Lindsey and Jim Brown followed.

The coaches started CPR, and deputy Richard Edwards grabbed the automated external defibrillator from the athletic field house.

The stricken man, who has not been identified, was shocked with the AED as emergency responders arrived, following a 6:49 a.m. call to 911.

“When we arrived, he did not have a pulse,” said Denell Boyd with the Cobb County Fire Department.

The man was taken to WellStar Kennestone Hospital after his pulse was detected.

“If there hadn’t been an AED in place and someone trained to use it, the man may not have survived,” Lassiter school nurse Audrey Dinoff said.

Play had ended at the Wakefield High School football field when the incident happened about 8 p.m., said Mark Savage, the Cary High School principal.

As people were leaving, a Cary High staff member called for help, saying Michael White, 15 years old, a player felt faint or had fainted.

Savage was on the other side of the field, but said he was told that those tending to the player could not find a pulse.

“I saw a player on the ground and I saw them doing CPR, so my coaches ran over there to the Cary side to see if everything was okay because it was our scrimmage and so we ran over there and he was bleeding a little, a lot of blood coming out so they had to rush and get the ambulance,” said Lawrence Keys, a Wakefield football player.

They were starting CPR when Wake County Emergency Medical Services arrived.

EMS responders used a defibrillator to revive the player, Savage said, and the student was breathing on his own and aware of his surroundings before being taken to a hospital.

White was reported to be in fair condition, according to a Wake Med spokesperson.

It happened around 4pm Wednesday during football practice at Pinewood Christian Academy in Bellville, Georgia.

Dalton Raulerson the Survivor with Parents

Dozens of kids and coaches were on the football field when a lightning bolt came out of nowhere, hitting one of the players.

Student Colby Ambrose was there when the lightning hit 14-year-old William Dalton Raulerson and still can’t believe it happened.

“We’d just gone done stretching and we were going to the practice field and we were crossing the track and all of a sudden you hear this big boom. Everybody was screaming and running trying to get to the field house. We didn’t know what was happening,” said Cody.

“One of the coaches said when he got his vision back, there was a big cloud of dust. He looked back and saw the kids scattering and there was one that didn’t move,” said Volunteer firefighter Robert Jernigan.

Coaches immediately started CPR on the teen, using a defibrillator until the ambulance arrived.

All the players were pretty shook up. A number of them were knocked down to the ground when the lightning hit. They were checked out by doctors and are going to be fine.

Raulerson is in critical condition at Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah. His family is by his side, along with friends, coaches and school administrators.

Updates

“Someone at the hospital told me his heart stopped beating for seven minutes,” said his mother Tanya Raulerson. “I remember thinking he’s probably brain dead. That’s before I knew they did CPR.”

“You know they say it’s just their job,” said Lawrence. “But there’s times people go way beyond their job.”

Dalton has no memory of what happened. His parents have explained his miracle, gradually.

“We sat him down and said you had a really close call,” said Tanya. “The coaches played a big part in you being here. Last night, we finally told him his heart didn’t beat for seven to eight minutes.