First Aid Corps

77-year-old Robert Monson was behind the wheel of a car that went out of control, clipped another car, crossed into oncoming traffic and slammed into a guardrail on County Road J near Interstate 35E. He had pulled out of the White Bear Township 17 Theatre parking lot, tried to turn and suffered the heart attack about 9:10 p.m..

A handful of good Samaritans who pulled him out of his car, laid him on the street and performed CPR as they waited for an ambulance.

“Myself and the fire department, we’re doing the job we’re trained to do,” said Deputy Rob Wilkinson, the first police officer or rescue worker to arrive at the scene.

“Those good Samaritans didn’t have to stop and help, and they did. He owes his life to ordinary people doing extraordinary things.”

Robert Monson was lying on his back unconscious, eyes wide open but not breathing and without a heartbeat, when Wilkinson and his partner arrived at the scene.

“I knew it was a critical situation,” Wilkinson said

Two men were performing CPR. Wilkinson asked a third bystander to hold a flashlight and another to start setting up oxygen, and then the deputy used an automated external defibrillator shock to the man’s chest.

“The defibrillator analyzed his heart rhythm, advised a shock. It (defibrillator) prompted me to shock him so I pressed the button, shocked him and he suddenly began gasping for air and was restored to somewhat of a normal cardiac rhythm,” Wilkinson said.

Monson immediately gasped for air.

“You could hear the gasping, it was amazing,” Mason said.

An ambulance arrived, and he was loaded in and shocked a second time before being transported to United Hospital in St. Paul, where he remained in the intensive care unit Sunday night.

“They were so good, the response was wonderful,” said Barbara Monson, who said Sunday night she tried to perform CPR on her husband in the vehicle before having to run out and flag people down. “I just flagged them down. … We were lucky the movie was just letting out and another one was starting.”

Wilkinson said the good Samaritans were vital in extending the window of time for the driver’s survival.

“The credit really goes to them,” Wilkinson said. “What they did enabled me to do what I did to save him. It’s a textbook case of what should happen when someone has a cardiac emergency.”

“It’s great to know that people out there care,” Monson said.

“I feel very very lucky, we’ve been married for 55 years, we’ve had a very good marriage, best friends, get along great,” Monson said.

The retired longshoreman, 85-year-old Bill Trujillo, strapped on his helmet and set out on a route he’d traveled many times.

John Heinrich the Saviour with Bill Trujillo the Survivor

There, his memory of that day stops. It picks up 20 days later, when he regained consciousness in a hospital and was told he’d suffered a heart attack, fallen off his bicycle and ultimately underwent six-way bypass surgery.

On Aug. 24, Heinrich was off-duty and traveling with his wife to Wal-Mart to buy supplies for the high school class he helps teach.

They were at the intersection of Elm Street and Mills Avenue when they saw Trujillo lying in the street, tangled in a bicycle about a block south.

They detoured and drove to the man, where Heinrich jumped out of the vehicle.

A bystander was about to move Trujillo out of the roadway, but the firefighter said to wait, in case the man had spinal injuries.

“I checked for a pulse, and he didn’t have one,” Heinrich said.

It all happened very quickly, Heinrich said, but instinct and training kicked in instantly.

He started CPR while using his cell phone to call for help. Fellow on-duty firefighters arrived with a defibrillator and used it twice before Trujillo’s heart started beating again.

“Really, all I did was keep him alive until they got here with the defibrillator,” Heinrich said.

An ambulance soon arrived and took Trujillo to Lodi Memorial Hospital. He was then transferred to Mercy Hospital in Sacramento.

Mike Trujillo noted that Heinrich’s training saved his father’s life, allowing the family to celebrate Thanksgiving today.

“He acted not only as a fireman but as a citizen,” he said. “We should probably all learn CPR.”

Jim Munn, 70, and Herschel Worthy had spare time in August when they drove up for a look at the recently renovated, upscale Mirimichi golf course near Millington.

But on the way, Worthy saw something was wrong with his friend.

“I touched him, and he fell over against the door,” Worthy said.

Worthy wheeled around and pulled onto O.K. Robertson Road, flagging down Burford, Harrifeld and Nichols, who were headed to lunch after training at the academy near U.S. 51.

They put him in an ambulance, but Munn was in full cardiac arrest.

Burford performed CPR — “I pumped that chest hard” — while the paramedics administered drugs and shocked Munn at least six times with a defibrillator.

Then they rushed him to Methodist University Hospital.

Despite their efforts, they were pretty sure he wasn’t going to make it, and they often never find out how their patients do because of confidentiality laws.

But Munn, now with a small automatic defibrillator implanted in his chest, was determined that they know their long shot paid off.

He traveled from California for a gathering the fire department hosted Friday for him and the firefighters.

Munn knows he wouldn’t be alive without the firefighters’ determination not to let him go.

“What words do you use to thank somebody who saved your life?” Munn asked, wiping away a tear. “There’s not any. It’s just handshakes and hugs.”

“Had they not done all the things they did, I would have been dead on arrival,” said Munn, whose only lingering side-effect is a 10-day gap in his memory and a sore chest from Burford’s vigorous CPR.

“Every time I breathe and it hurts, I say, ‘Thank you,’” he said.

Magda Lugo, 59, a resident of the Bayville section, was a passenger in her son’s car about 1:20 p.m. Wednesday when Patrolman John Sperber stopped the vehicle, said Detective Sgt. James J. Smith.

Lugo’s son, Eric Cappas, 38, of Farrelly Avenue, was driving on Forest Hills Parkway and was at Bill Zimmerman Jr. Way, when Sperber signaled him to pull over. Cappas jumped out and told the officer his mother “was having a heart attack,” Smith said.

Cappas and another person helped remove Lugo from the car and placed her on the ground while Sperber retrieved his automated external defibrillator — AED — from his patrol car, Smith said.

Detective Will Cullen, Sgt. David Britton and officers Richard Breitenbach and Don Rowley assisted at the scene. The officers performed cardio-pulmonary resuscitation on Lugo in between four shocks delivered from the AED before an emergency medical services crew arrived, Smith said.

Carol Sasso, an employee of the Ocean County Sheriff Department’s dispatch center, stopped at the scene to help and two Berkeley Township employees from the Public Works department also helped out, Smith said.

En route to Community Medical Center, medics shocked Lugo’s heart another four times, Smith said.

She received an emergency cardiac procedure at Community Medical Center in Toms River, and remained a patient there Friday.

Cpl. James Streeter, 37, said he was at home cleaning around 9 a.m. when his doorbell rang. He opened the door to find Pastor Greg Ball’s wife Bobbie on his porch very upset. Streeter said he is friends with the couple and attends Destiny Church.

Bobbie Ball told Streeter that she and her husband had been jogging in their neighborhood when he suddenly collapsed. She said she knocked on the doors of several neighbors in an attempt to get help, but nobody was home.

That’s when she saw Streeter’s patrol car parked in his driveway and rang his doorbell.

Less than a mile into the run, Greg, who had turned 48 the day before, collapsed. “We usually jog to the left and this time we jogged to the right,” says Greg. “We made a jog around and from that moment on, I really didn’t remember anything that happened. My wife said I took off running, got about a hundred yards ahead of her, and just dropped.”

Streeter said he called Collier County Sheriff’s Office’s Communications Center and then drove a quarter of a mile to where Ball was on the ground.

Ball wasn’t breathing and didn’t have a pulse.

Streeter removed the AED from his patrol car, hooked it up to Ball and gave him one shock. Streeter then administered CPR until Ball started breathing on his own.

Paramedics arrived shortly after and transported Ball to a local hospital.

“The next thing I remember,” says Greg, “was waking up in the hospital and hearing the amazing story of what God did for my life.”

On Sept. 18, as 71-year-old George Allison was in the back seat of his son Craig Allison’s car driving on Highway 101 in San Luis Obispo, Calif., he suffered sudden cardiac arrest.

George Allison (right) the Survivor

“We had just finished some conversation and there was some quiet time. Within about 30 seconds my son turned around,” said Barbara, who was riding in the front seat.

From the look on Craig’s face, she said, she knew something terrible was happening.

Her husband of nearly 50 years wasn’t breathing.

Craig pulled the car to the shoulder and yanked his father’s body from the back seat and tried to administer the Heimlich maneuver, thinking his father had choked on a peanut.

“My daughter-in-law got out and she was screaming for help. Her cell phone wouldn’t work,” said Barbara. “Craig pulled him out of the car and laid him on the ground, and the people showed up.”

Those people were strangers Daniel Lapidus, a San Luis Obispo dentist who had recently finished his active duty with the Air Force, according to the San Luis Obispo Tribune, and Marisela Campos, a public health employee working toward a degree in nursing.

“He wasn’t breathing, and he didn’t have a pulse,” Lapidus told the Tribune. “I knew we had to give him CPR.”

Lapidus started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and Campos began chest compressions.

Barbara Allison said the two strangers worked for eight minutes to try to get her husband to breathe again.

A California Highway Patrol trooper arrived on scene and hit George with a defibrillator, which sends an electric shock to the heart.

George was rushed to a nearby hospital where he underwent emergency surgery to implant a defibrillator in his chest.

By Monday, he and his wife were home.

“The most memorable part of this is the people and how they reacted — the lady, the dentist and the highway patrolman — the things they did. They didn’t hesitate. They didn’t ask,” he said, his voice choked with emotion. “All of those things needed to come together just right, and they did.”

“Eight minutes of CPR is a very long time and almost never happens,” said Barbara. “There are very few who could have lived under these circumstances.”

“They were my guardian angels,” said George.

Kal Fishman’s 68-year-old father Naum had a heart attack in the back seat of their car on Yamato Road in Boca Raton Friday night.

Frantic to save him, Kal and his wife started CPR. It was scary but then something happened assuring them they weren’t alone.

“All the cars just stopped, it was amazing how people were so helpful,” said Fishman, “Just stopped on the side of the road and helped us and dialed 911 for us.”

A Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputy, Florinda Clark, heard the call, she had a portable defibrillator in her car. She dropped everything and was there in minutes.

The couple was concentrated on the CPR, the deputy hooked up the AED and sent out a pulse.

Rescue crews got the grandfather to the hospital, where he’s expected to make a full recovery.

Fishman said, “I wish I could just hug and shake their hand, unfortunately they are complete strangers, of course that’s the beauty of this entire incident.”

Jennifer Trombly of St. Petersburg had just walked out of a Sweetbay Supermarket at about 6 p.m. when she heard a commotion and saw a man lying on the ground outside the store.

Jennifer Trombly the Saviour

Trombly called 911. She asked three men who were helping the victim if he was breathing or had a pulse. They said, “No.” She told the men to give the man two breaths to give him some oxygen.

Trombly, whose 9-year-old son has a condition that can cause him to go into a life-threatening arrhythmia, raced to her car and got her personal automated external defibrillator, or AED.

As she tried to get the defibrillator out of a backpack, she instructed the men to give 30 chest compressions and continue mouth-to-mouth.

Another man lifted the victim’s shirt. She put the tabs on his chest to analyze if a shock was needed. When the shock was advised, they told everyone to clear, and Trombly shocked him.

The men continued CPR and the victim, who had a name tag that identified him as Charlie, started to take irregular breaths.

Shortly afterward, St. Petersburg firefighters and paramedics arrived at the store, 6095 9 Ave. N, to find that Trombly had coordinated the rescue effort.

Trombly’s actions helped save the man’s life, said Lt. Joel Granata of St. Petersburg Fire & Rescue.

“She jump-started his heart with that,” Granata said.

Paramedics transported the man, whose name wasn’t released, to Bayfront Medical Center in serious condition.

“I don’t look at myself as a hero,” Trombly said Tuesday night. “All I did was use a tool I had and push a button.”

“I don’t feel like I did anything extra,” she said. “I think the guys who did the CPR are the real heroes. They kept him going until I could give him the shock.”

Trombly, a third grade teacher at Northwest Elementary, has had the AED for two years.

She said her family was trained on the machine when her son was diagnosed with having an irregular heartbeat.

“You never know when you’re going to use it,” she said.

“It is nice to know that people will still do good even if it’s a complete stranger,” Trombly said. “And that means a lot.”

While driving home Sunday evening, Jim Boor was taking the Century Avenue exit in White Bear Lake when something in the ditch caught his eye.

“What we found down there was a car in the ditch with a man slumped over the steering wheel and it looked like he was having a coronary, having a heart attack,” said Boor.

Boor and another passer-by pulled the man from the car and they started CPR.

Boor said nothing really seemed to be working until the State Patrol and paramedics arrived with defibrillators. That is when he believes things took a turn for the better.

“He brought it down and they started immediately with the defibrillator on him. Which, I’m not an expert on anything, but as far as I’m concerned I think the defibrillator is what saved the man’s life,” said Boor.

The State Patrol agrees. Trooper Michael Olson hooked up the first defibrillator to the man.

He never thought he would use it, but it helped get the man’s heart started again- and he was rushed to United Hospital in St. Paul where he remains in intensive care.

“I was hoping it was gonna work. It’s always worked when we test it. This is the first time I had the opportunity to use it and see it work in the field. It did exactly what it was supposed to do,” said Trooper Olson.

The State Patrol said they were far from alone in this effort. Olson said it was a team effort with passer-by’s and other departments helping out as well, including Oakdale Fire and Rescue.

The man’s wife told WCCO she wanted to thank all the first responders, including the drivers who stopped to help her husband.

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

Trooper Jason Ward

When Indiana Trooper Jason Ward contacted the post in Fort Wayne to check what was going on, he was told it was an alert siren for the Arcola Volunteer Fire Department and that it was for a passenger in a Plymouth Voyager van experiencing medical difficulties on U.S. 30 at the Allen County-Whitley County line.

Ward located the van at 12:21 a.m. and found 20-year-old Zachary P. Mosley wrapped in a blanket and unresponsive to attempts to rouse him.“I got there, and I was the first emergency vehicle there,” he recalled Tuesday afternoon. “A man was laid out in the back of a van. … He was not moving and his breathing was shallow.”

Sidney Allen, 20, of Columbia City, told the trooper Mosley has a history of heart problems and that chest compressions were done before Ward’s arrival, the statement said.

Shortly afterward, a volunteer firefighter from the Arcola department arrived. Together, they took Mosley out of the van, removed his shirt and affixed the automatic electronic defibrillator to his chest.

“Lo and behold, the machine said to shock him,” said Ward. “So I cleared everybody and pushed the button and it was like somebody turned the switch on. He woke up, then he sat up and leaned over, then fell back to the ground and said, ‘man, that really hurt.’”

“He started talking to us, mainly complaining about the pain he’d just received,” Ward said about the incident, which occurred at 12:17 a.m

He became more responsive and began answering questions. He was transported to Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne where was listed in serious condition, the statement said.

“I just happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right piece of equipment,” said Ward, a seven-year trooper.

“I’m not medically inclined, so I don’t know much other than his heart wasn’t beating in a rhythm,” said Ward. “He was in trouble. For me to say he wouldn’t have made it, I’m not a doctor. He was in trouble, though.”

“It’s one of those things you hope you get to do,” said Ward. “You hope that God gives you the opportunity to be in the right place”

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