First Aid Corps

A man who suffered sudden cardiac arrest recently while exercising at the Mississauga YMCA is expected to recover thanks to facility staff and the presence of a defibrillator.

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After collapsing, 47-year-old Cambridge resident Richard Goodwin was tended to by staff at the Burnhamthorpe Rd. W. facility, who used a “Mikey,” a public access defibrillator, to treat him.

The life-saving device was supplied by The Mikey Network, a registered Canadian charity working to create public awareness and provide education about heart healthy lifestyles. The network has trained more than 11,000 people in CPR/AED and has placed more than 1,350 “Mikeys” in schools, community centres, churches and other locations across the country. To date, according to network officials, 15 lives have been saved by their devices.

“Richard regularly exercised at the Mississauga YMCA. Trained staff performed CPR and applied the MIKEY defibrillator. After one shock, they were able to get a heartbeat on Mr. Goodwin, who was starting his workout, when he collapsed. He was then transported to the Credit Valley Hospital for treatment and is expected to fully recover,” said Mikey Network Chairman Hugh Heron.

A high-school softball player found the mandatory CPR class she took the day came in handy — she used her new skills to save a teammate’s life.

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Taylor Bisbee and her friends on the High Point, N.C.,Wesleyan Academy softball team were doing some base running. Suddenly eighth-grader Paris White collapsed.

Taylor Bisbee the Saviour

“It was scary to see her fall like that. Cause I wasn’t expecting it,” Bisbee told MyFox8.

One of White’s teammates dialed 911. But Bisbee was the one who immediately jumped into action and started performing CPR.

“I just knelt down next to her and I just started,” Bisbee said.

“It was really scary for me because it was the difference between life and death.”

Minutes later, staff arrived on the scene with a defibrillator to get White’s heart beating again, according to Coach Donald Brewer.

An ambulance took White to Duke University Hospital. It is unclear what caused the young girl’s collapse, but she is expected to make a full recovery.

The experience has encouraged the fast-thinking Bisbee to pursue a career in medicine.

A Twillingate man says he’d be dead were it not for a defibrillator that he arranged to have installed at the local arena.

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Dave Stuckey was playing recreational hockey at the George Hawkins Memorial Arena earlier this month when he experienced chest pains.

Two doctors on his team advised him to go to the hospital, and one of them left to get his truck so he could drive Stuckey there.

Dave Stuckey the Survivor

While Stuckey was waiting for the doctor to return, he went to the washroom where he passed out.

Stuckey said he later found out his heart had stopped for 10 to 15 minutes.

“I was totally dead. There was no pulse,” he said.

He was also told his hockey buddies and the doctors sprung into action.

“Someone went and got it [the defibrillator] for the doctors,” Stuckey continued. “Two of the players there was doing CPR before the doctor got back. So they proceeded with the CPR and they got the defib all hooked up and started shocking me. I was shocked six times.”

Stuckey only regained consciousness a couple of hours later, in an ambulance on the way to Gander. He was then airlifted to St. John’s, where doctors put a stent in his blocked artery.

In a twist of fate, Stuckey, who also happens to be the Twillingate arena’s manager, said he arranged for the defibrillator to be installed about two-and-a-half years ago.

“I got a call from Heart and Stroke. They were at the time doing this, putting defibs into areas. They contacted me, I presented it to the town, and from there we got it.”

“Jokingly, when we put the defib in there, I went to the town manager and I said, ‘I’ll probably be the first one that it has to be used on,’ just as a joke,” said Stuckey. “But it was me that it had to be used on.”
Government funded project

Stuckey, who turns 50 next week, said he feels like he got a second chance at life.

He believes defibrillators should be installed in all public buildings.

“You don’t pick a place to have a heart attack, right?” said Stuckey. ”’I can’t have one [a heart attack] here because there’s no defib,’ you know what I mean?”

It was just a regular Sunday pickup game of hockey.

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Gary Smits, 47, wasn’t even supposed to be playing that December morning. He’d been called in as a sub.

Teammate Dale Blanchard had also been called in at the last minute — a stroke of luck that would prove a lifesaver for Smits, a technology and co-op teacher at Medway high school.

Gary Smits the Survivor & Dale Blanchard the Saviour

After 50 minutes on the ice, Smits felt a little bit of chest discomfort, maybe a little bit hotter than usual. He chalked it up to hard game-play.

As he skated back onto the ice, though, “the lights went out. The next thing I remember was them loading me into the ambulance.”

Smits had had a heart attack.

Blanchard, an off-duty Middlesex-London EMS paramedic, grabbed the nearby defibrillator and teammates began performing CPR after calling 911. Their quick actions likely saved Smit’s life.

Doctors told Smits one of his arteries was 78% blocked. Now, nearly two months after Smits’ ordeal, Middlesex-London EMS, which works with the Heart and Stroke Foundation to distribute free defibrillators to public facilities, wants to give Medway high school a free machine.

No thanks, says Thames Valley district school board. The free machine isn’t one of two models the board has approved for use in its schools, so it’s turning it down. Smits is still off work, hoping to be medically cleared to go back in March.

A tired but grateful Danny Berger called it a “miracle” that he was back to watch his Utah State basketball teammates play days after collapsing on the court and being revived by an assistant trainer.

Danny Berger the Survivor

Berger was released from a Salt Lake City area hospital Saturday and was back in Logan, flanked by the trainer credited with saving his life and a father who thought the worst upon receiving word of Tuesday’s life-threatening incident while driving in the middle of the Nevada desert.

“I immediately thought Hank Gathers, because I’m from there,” Berger’s father, Brian, said about the Loyola Marymount star who collapsed and died at 23 in 1990 during a West Coast Conference tournament game because of a heart-muscle disorder.

“I didn’t know what to think.”

He quipped that Nevada state troopers let him get away with driving 110 mph as he made his way through the desert toward Utah, where he was headed for the Aggies’ game Wednesday night against Brigham Young. The game was postponed and has since been rescheduled for Feb. 19.

Brian Berger also was grateful for Mike Williams, who is in his 14th year as an assistant athletic trainer at Utah State.

Williams was across the court Tuesday when Berger collapsed during a routine practice.

The 43-year-old Williams had been on site in 2007 when rodeo rider Tag Elliott nearly died after being hit in the head with a bull horn. He was among those who helped stabilize Elliott. But until Tuesday, Williams had only taught CPR and never performed it.

If Tuesday’s scene was chaotic, Williams said he didn’t have time to notice. He yelled for the manager to call 911 and get the automatic defibrillator (AED).

“I remember looking down and starting CPR, mouth to mouth, the compressions and then hooking the AED up,” Williams said. “That’s the worst part, because it takes 15 seconds to analyze and you’re just sitting there waiting.”

The machine finally said “shock advised” and Williams administered the shock, then went back to CPR. On the third set, he heard Berger gurgle a bit and then he blew another really hard breath into him.

“As I pulled up, I actually saw the pulse in his carotid artery before I felt it,” Williams said.

Only afterward, when he tried to call the head trainer, did he realize how traumatic the situation was.

The phone was ringing and ringing but no one answered. Williams finally realized he had dialed 10 random digits and that his hands were shaking.

“Afterward the adrenaline got there, but fortunately that was afterward,” Williams said.

Berger still doesn’t remember any of that, only practicing defense in preparation for the rivalry game, then feeling dizzy as if he had stood up too fast.

“One of my teammates made a shot in my face when I was guarding him and I was kind of upset about it,” he recalled Saturday.

Four days later, he looked forward to a reunion with the rest of his teammates, who will be wearing “12″ patches on the jerseys. First, he wanted a nap.

“I can’t explain everything. It’s just a miracle,” said Danny Berger, his left arm in a sling to protect the miniature defibrillator installed so doctors can monitor his heart remotely should there be any further problems.

Doctors cannot fully explain what caused the 22-year-old to collapse but said he was born with a tendency for this to happen because of his heart having two to three extra beats, according to Dr. Jared Brunch of the Intermountain Medical Center, where he was transported Tuesday via medical helicopter.

The elder Berger said Brunch told him Brunch is much more likely to have a heart attack than Danny and that Danny is less likely to have a problem than anybody on the team because of the defibrillator.

The starting forward remains hopeful he will play again but is taking it day by day. Six weeks is the earliest he can get back out on the court.

“I just have to trust the experts,” Brian Berger said.

Danny’s mom is a little less enthusiastic.

“She just wants me to be in the library for the rest of my life,” Danny joked.

All were grateful to be in Logan, getting ready to watch a basketball game with their son.

“There’s literally dozens of people who have played a role in this whole process just in these last four days,” Brian Berger said. “And every single person has done the exact right thing that they needed to do, starting with Mike. … If it hadn’t been for Mike and the quick response … I’ve got nothing but gratitude.

“Four days ago we didn’t know what was going to happen, and (Friday) Danny was walking on the treadmill. When you have something like this happen, it’s that time period where it’s either fatal or not, or brain damage or not.”

Danny, though he doesn’t remember Williams at his side Tuesday, was glad to have him there Saturday during a news conference before the game against Western Oregon.

“I tried to tell the doctor that I want (Williams) to be my personal defibrillator but they didn’t buy it, they had to put one in there,” Danny Berger said. “I owe Mike a lot. I can’t ever pay him back. He’s one of the smartest guys I know, and a life-long friend.”