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.
Malinowski and friend Kayla Stonehouse had come back from a water break during a kick boxing class about 9:20 p.m. Wednesday at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse’s Recreational Eagle Center to find abdominal exercises already had begun on the mat.
“Good thing we came back late,” Malinowski whispered jokingly to Stonehouse.
When the next exercise began, everyone flipped on their backs - except Malinowski.
Stonehouse again thought she was joking.
Then she noticed Malinowski’s face, eyes rolled back. She began to wheeze and gasp.
Stonehouse jumped up, yelling for help.
Sophomore Christiane Berdan was certified in CPR from her lifeguard days and as a UW-L athletic training student. She thought at first Malinowski had fainted but when she got closer realized it was much worse. The 20-year-old had no pulse and wasn’t breathing.
“You kick into autopilot and do what needs to be done at the moment and don’t think about it,” said Berdan.
Berdan started chest compressions, and Stonehouse began breathing for her friend.
Andrea Harrill, UW-L student and building manager at the center, was sitting at the back counter when a frantic person came from the fitness room. Harrill directed students and fellow staff to grab an on-site defibrillator and call 911.
Harrill administered shocks to Malinowski with the defibrillator until the La Crosse Fire Department and Tri-State Ambulance arrived.
Firefighter EMTs got Malinowski breathing on her own again, her father Mark Malinowski said.
His daughter is recovering at Franciscan Skemp Medical Center. Walking outside the hospital room, Mark Malinowski’s eyes teared up when he spoke of the many people who came through for his family and daughter - from UW-L staff to firefighters, first responders and hospital workers.
But she wouldn’t be alive had the students not known what to do, he said.
“They reacted. They weren’t afraid to do something,” he said. “These people are heroes in my book.”
“Talking to people and realizing more and more how bad it was when I was going to the hospital, realizing it really is a second chance at life,” Clare said.
“People I don’t even know and don’t remember and had no idea would do such things for me are showing all sorts of support. I can’t show thanks enough,” Clare said.
In a biology classroom last month, Manzano High School 14-year old freshman Nicholas Roldan almost lost his life.
“I don’t remember anything happening, at all. They said I said I feel weird, then I was out,” said Roldan.
“Two kids ran in and said there’s an emergency next door, we need you,” said Marianne Evans, teacher.
According to Evans, Roldan did not have a pulse an was not breathing. She said she performed CPR for about 15 minutes and there was still nothing.
“He would take a little breath and I’d think we had him, and I kept telling him breathe! Breathe! He just never took another breath after that,” said Evans.
At that time, another teacher rushed in with a defibrillator and shocked him.
“It’s a horrible thing to see. It’s nothing like on TV,” said Evans.
The paramedics finally showed up and was able to bring Roldan back.
“Right before they were going to leave the room, I heard them say, ‘He’s got a pulse,’” she said. “And all I said was, you know, ‘thank God.’”
“I remember just being in the hospital. I’m really grateful that everybody was there to help and that I’m fine now,” said Roldan.
Evans said that the defibrillation was a horrible thing to see but according to paramedics, without it the student would have died.
Just after noon, a 7-year-old boy was celebrating at a holiday party with his classmates at the Josiah Quincy Elementary School in Boston, said Matthew Wilder, spokesman for the Boston public schools.
Suddenly, he became unresponsive and went into cardiac arrest, Wilder said. It is unclear what triggered the problem.
School nurses immediately rushed to the classroom where the party was taking place and began performing CPR on the boy, Wilder said.
Three minutes later, emergency medical technicians arrived and found the boy was not breathing and had no pulse. Paramedics arrived on the scene a few minutes later.
Emergency workers managed to revive the child, but he was not breathing on his own when they transported him across the street to Tufts Medical Center, according to emergency officials.
“The school nurse really should be praised,” said Jennifer Mehigan, spokeswoman for Boston Emergency Medical Services. “Those quick actions are really what save someone’s life.”
31-year-old Jason Lewis, a student at Daytona State College’s law enforcement academy, earned his certification on Tuesday night and on Wednesday helped revive a coach who had collapsed at the school’s fitness center.
Gym supervisor Ross Peterson, who is a physical education instructor, and students Joel Willenbring and Demetre Growette administered CPR.
A police officer quickly arrived on the scene and used the school’s automated external defibrillator to jolt Mike’s heart into rhythm.
“They brought me back,” Mike said quietly last week, sitting in the home dugout at John Burch Park in Cannon Falls, located between the Twin Cities and Rochester.
An ambulance took him to the local hospital and a helicopter transported him to St. Paul Children’s Hospital. He was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the heart muscle that forces the heart to work harder than normal.
Today, Mike Spillman was finally back in action, playing high school baseball after months of waiting for doctors to give him the go-ahead. In his first at-bat of the season earlier this month, the junior from Cannon Falls lashed a run-scoring double against Kasson-Mantorville. He later advanced to third base, sliding headfirst into the bag.
“When he did that, the fans were gasping,” Cannon Falls coach Bucky Lindow said.
The fans weren’t gasping at Spillman’s speed. They were gasping because he has a pacemaker in his chest.
Seeing Mike on the baseball field is a relief for his family. The hard part came in September, when he nearly died.
“I don’t even think about it, because he’s safer now than he was without the pacemaker,” Penny Spillman said of her son.
Shocked teammates of the Delray Beach school, huddled in right field in a post-game meeting, had no idea what was happening Wednesday night after the team’s 5-4 win at West Boca High. Some screamed she was having a seizure. Claire Dunlap was not breathing.
“We were all laughing and were having a fun time before she fell down,” Heritage-Delray senior catcher Lauryn Wright told the Sun Sentinel.
Palm Beach County Fire Rescue Capt. Roberto Grau who was watching his son finish a baseball game at a nearby field, came running over.
“I took a peek over there and saw a bunch of people gathered around somebody laying in the outfield,” said Grau, who has worked for Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue for 18 years, plus an additional three years in fire service.
“People were in the panic mode,” said Grau, a 22-year veteran. “They were hysterical. I don’t think anybody really knew what was going on.”
With the school’s trainer, Grau placed an oxygen mask on Dunlap and then checked her pulse. There was none. They reached for an automatic external defibrillator, which the trainer carried in her golf cart, in an effort to revive her heart.
“We turned it on and it did its thing,” said Grau who helped the school’s trainer administer the shocks.
After three jolts, Grau saw her chest begin to rise, but she remained unconscious. Three minutes after she passed out, paramedics arrived.
“No prior warning at all in fact she had a perfect day at school. I was with her for part of the time working on a project.”
Dunlap, 15, remains in intensive care at West Boca Medical Center, where the sophomore will undergo tests to determine what caused an apparent seizure that stopped her breathing and then her heart, Headmaster Robert Stone said.
Update
Sarah Donner hugs Claire Dunlap
In the American Heritage Delray 2A regional game Tuesday night, the team takes the field except for center fielder Claire Dunlap.
Dunlap stands in the dugout not because she’s benched and not because of grades, but because two weeks ago, she died.
“People were screaming ‘She’s having a seizure’ so immediately I said to one of the kids in class ‘Please go get the AED’ as I was running over there and when I got there I could tell it wasn’t a normal seizure. Something was wrong with her. I checked for breathing. I checked her pulse and she was unresponsive,” says Donner.
“Most of the time we take them to the hospital. We really don’t hear the end result so for this, kinda hit home, because I’m a baseball coach and we get to see the girls come in and out from the softball field so we have a little bit more tie to this and seeing the end result with Claire just making it better for us to see that she’s doing ok now,” says Manriquez.
“I’m just glad that we were able to make such a difference in a young person’s life,” says Grau.
Dunlap will have a better idea of when she can return to sports in about six weeks.
Oregon State University’s Dixon Recreation Center manager Miles Dodge, a 21-year-old senior, was in the lobby area Wednesday morning when he heard that a man had fallen in a locker room.
Dodge radioed another employee, Lindsay Taylor, and told her to call 911.
At the same time, two off-duty Dixon employees, Joey Jenkins and Ben Misely, were converging on the scene. Jenkins, a sports club graduate assistant and Misely, a center manager, typically met at 7 a.m. to attend Bible study. But in a bit of serendipity, the two changed their plans on Wednesday.
“For whatever reason, I asked Joey to do 7:30,” Misely said.
Jenkins was changing in the locker room when he realized something serious was going on. He met up with Dodge to get the Automated External Defibrillator (AED). Just then, Misely ran into the locker room.
“It didn’t even occur to me how weird it was that Ben and Joey were there,” Dodge said.
When the three returned to the victim, who was being watched over by OSU Triathlon Club coach Michael Tasman, Misely cut the man’s shirt off and used his sweatshirt to dry him off so that the defibrillator’s pads would stick.
Dodge was about to start rescue breaths when the device recommended a shock.
“All of us kinda leaned back and then Joey pushed the button,” Dodge said.
After receiving the mild electric shock, the man sat up, leaned forward and exhaled heavily.
“I’ll never forget that sound of air leaving him,” Misely said.
When the man moved, so did his eyes. Dodge hoped that meant the ordeal was over.
But the man lay back down, the defibrillator indicated he was in distress and his rescuers began administering CPR. Jenkins started chest compressions and Dodge began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
All three noticed a definite point at which their patient seemed to come back to life, with stronger breathing and a detectable pulse. At about the time that the trio suspended CPR, medics arrived.
“Through the whole thing, it wasn’t us thinking what was next, we just did what was next,” Dodge said.
“The training just kicks in,” Misely agreed. “It’s just an instinct to respond.”
As of Saturday, the man they assisted — who is an employee at OSU — was in fair condition at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center. Snow said a family member had told him he’d undergone surgery and is expected to make a full recover.
“When we came in, we were looking at a dead man,” Misely said. “To think that he’s doing well now is somewhat unbelievable.”
Thomas and another student were racing up the school’s front drive about 4:10 p.m during the first day of track practice, when Thomas fell to the pavement.
Physical education teacher Becky Smith retrieved an automated external defibrillator from the school. Math teacher Dan Schroeder connected Thomas to the AED and administered shock treatments, while Smith and Assistant Principal Christine Riemer assisted Davis with CPR.
Math teacher Dan Schroeder says that voice from the school defibrillator helped him and several others save their student.
“I checked for a pulse and could not find one and then I saw the compression’s were being done from the other teachers.”
P.E. teacher Becky Smith ran the defibrillator outside as other staff members applied CPR and waited for an ambulance.
“I’m thankful that we were all there and that we could help this young man and that he’s doing well.”
“It’s an amazing feeling to know that I helped save someone’s life, especially a young student,” says Ty-Ray’s track coach Chana Hinkston.
Paramedics were able to re-establish a heart rhythm with Thomas in the ambulance en route to the hospital.
Ty-Ray is currently recovering at Rockford Memorial Hospital.
Ty-Ray’s dad, Steve Thomas, says the family didn’t know his son had a heart condition before he collapsed on Wednesday. But now he’s on the road to recovery.
My other son is up there got him doing leg exercises right now, so we can get him stronger, he’s standing, sitting on a chair right now , it’s a blessing.”
“If they didn’t go through that training there’s no telling what would have happened, if they weren’t there at the right time, he’d be lost, I mean he would have been gone.”
He and his mom, Marlo Thomas, agree that Ty-Ray is a lucky kid.
“God put everybody in the place they were supposed to be,” Marlo said. “Because if they weren’t, who knows what would have happened. It wasn’t his time yet.”
He still might play basketball in the future, but for now he’s taking things slow.
“I’m just thankful to be here and thankful that God touched me,” he said.
In the gym later that morning, Ron Pardi, a gym and music teacher at the school, led the first-graders in a ball-bouncing exercise.
When 6-year-old Olivia Quigley suddenly dropped to the floor, Pardi went to her and found her still breathing. He went to the office to call for help and sent another student to fetch Casaletto from his sixth-grade classroom nearby.
Teacher Robert Casaletto, 38, rushed to the gym fearing something had happened to his daughter, also a first-grader in the class. He went to help Olivia as the other first-graders watched in stunned silence. One began to cry. Then, he sent them into another room.
“That was the hard thing for me,” Casaletto said. “Part of me wanted to go hug my daughter, but I thought, Olivia needs me more.”
Carabine rushed in minutes later. She saw Olivia on the floor, her skin gray. Carabine knew the girl well, having met her at a summer camp last year where she was teaching.
Carabine put her mouth over Olivia’s and gave her two breaths. Casaletto gave her 30 chest compressions. The two alternated the routine for 7 minutes.
Firefighters and emergency workers arrived shortly afterward and shocked the girl with a defibrillator as a school administrator watched and said a Hail Mary aloud.
Olivia’s heartbeat returned.
Joe Quigley arrived at the school just in time to see his daughter’s breathing restored. He pulled out his cellphone and called his wife, a scientist at Biogen Idec Inc. in Cambridge.
“When we got to the ER at Mass. General, they said they believed she had a heart attack,” she said. “It was absolutely inconceivable to me. I still have a hard time accepting this happened.”
“MGH called her their miracle child,” Joe Quigley said sitting in his daughter’s hospital room yesterday.
Yesterday afternoon in her hospital room, Olivia behaved like a typical little girl, coloring pictures and singing songs. She greeted Casaletto and Carabine, as well as her first-grade teacher, Lauren Rozzi, with open arms. They gave her gifts, stuffed animals and notes, from her first-grade classmates. She wiggled two of her loose teeth for them.
“There are no words to express my gratitude,” Cathy Quigley said. “Olivia had angels on earth taking care of her.”
Updates
Today Boston EMT Philip Kennard returned to the same auditorium for a celebration of the rescue of Olivia Quigley, now 7. She was in the front row with her parents, smiling, as officials praised the school’s teachers and rescue personnel for bringing her back to life.
“Right there,” said Kennard, 25, pointing to the spot on the floor where he and his partner Michael Steiner, 49, treated Olivia that day.
“It’s amazing. It’s one of those things that can happen only once in an entire career,” said Kennard, a tall, thin, young man in the brown uniform of an EMT. “She’s made a full recovery, a happy little kid.”
About 200 students from the school, from grades 1 to 7, the girls clad in plaid jumpers and the boys in white polo shirts and dark pants, crowded into the auditorium for the ceremony, which included a presentation of proclamations from the Legislature and from the city.
Principal Mary Ann Manfredonia said Olivia’s family was truly “a profile in courage” and that Olivia had “battled the odds and is well on her way to a complete recovery.”
Joe Quigley, Olivia’s father, said the ceremony was “fabulous.”
“It gave us such an opportunity to stand up and actually thank, in person, everybody that was involved, the teachers, the school, Father Wayne from the church, and, of course, the EMTs that responded so well,” said Quigley.
“Olivia’s doing great. She’s just so happy to be back in school. She’s so happy to be back with her friends. She wants to be a normal little girl. And she is a normal little girl, she’s just been through an awful lot,” said Quigley. It’s still a mystery why Olivia’s heart stopped, Quigley said.
Asked after the ceremony how she was feeling, Olivia said, “Better,” with a big smile.
Quigley said it took seven minutes for emergency responders to get to the school. That was “absolutely fantastic,” he said, but “in our daughter’s case, if CPR hadn’t been performed on her, seven minutes would have been too late.”
