First Aid Corps

About 8:15 a.m. on 4th February, moments after talking with Homestead High School senior Abishek Chintapalli, biology teacher Bekki Vail heard him fall to the floor.

Abishek Chintapalli the Survivor

She ran to see what had happened and found him unconscious, but making irregular gasps for air, known as agonal breathing.

Two students rushed to the clinic and alerted school nurse Maria Lund, who ran to the room and started giving Chintapalli chest compressions in front of a crowd of students.

Time seemed to slip away as Lund kept pushing, unable to get Chintapalli to begin breathing.

“I could see his color was getting bad,” Lund said.

Nurse Beth Quigley was the second responder to arrive. She worked with Lund, giving Chintapalli mouth-to-mouth to no avail.

Vail called 911, and Lund radioed for an automated external defibrillator.

A custodian heard the call, grabbed the device near the clinic and ran upstairs to give it to Lund.

By that time, Assistant Principal Steve Lake had arrived on the scene. He never had felt so helpless, he said, as he watched Lund put the defibrillator on Chintapalli’s chest.

Chintapalli’s heart wasn’t beating, and the defibrillator gave directions to shock. Lund did so, twice, establishing a heartbeat.

More staff members arrived to help carry Chintapalli down the stairs; others contacted his mother.

By the time an ambulance pulled away, at least 20 Southwest Allen County Schools employees had played some role in the emergency response.

“You were there when Chintapalli needed him, and you did everything in a very timely manner,” Chintapalli’s mother, Lakshmi said. “Abi is alive because of you.”

Chintapalli said he was touched by the support he received in the hospital and was happy to be back in school.

“I lost 8 to 10 pounds when I was in the hospital,” he said. “But I think I gained it all back yesterday. We had lots of parties, lots of food.”

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.

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.

East Union High School attendance office employee Sue Bloodgood didn’t utter a word or make a sound on the morning of Nov. 19.

She just collapsed onto her desk.

The 52-year-old Bloodgood was working with campus monitor Julia Bylow, filing some paperwork to document a small scuffle between students on campus that morning, when she went lifeless and entered into cardiac arrest.

“I went over and said ‘Sue, Sue,’ but no response,” said Bylow, who, as chance would have it, had completed a cardiopulmonary resuscitation course just two weeks before - instruction that helped her save the life of her friend and colleague.

Bylow put Bloodgood in position and began CPR, delivering oxygen to her for four solid minutes, said Karl Knutsen, an East Union JROTC teacher.

After four minutes of CPR from Bylow, head football coach Mike James and Knudsen stepped in for an additional two before the paramedics team of Keith Danel and Jon Mendoza arrived to transport Bloodgood to a Kaiser Permanente facility before she was transferred to Doctors Hospital in Modesto.

“She was lifeless and she had no pulse,” Danel said. “They did an awesome job with the CPR.”

The very next day, Bloodgood was in good health, could take directions, apparently with little to no brain damage.

“I’m just so happy to be here,” Bloodgood said Tuesday night as she delivered hugs and thanks to the employees who were honored by Manteca Unified’s Board of Trustees for their heroic actions.

“Sue wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for them,” said Sue’s husband, Scott Bloodgood.

They’re just three big words – Automated Electronic Defibrillator – but for 16-year-old Zachary Harper and his family, they’re words to live by.

Zachary Harper (2nd from left) the Survivor

On an otherwise routine school day last month, Harper, a junior, was minding the school store with a couple of friends when he suddenly grew light-headed.

Seconds after he staggered to teacher Dana Bourassa’s classroom to get a pass for the nurse, it was lights out.

“That’s the last thing I remember,” the slim, black-haired teen said this week at home, where he and his family gathered to piece together the seconds and minutes that, had it not been for nurse Mary Arrowsmith, assistant principal Diane Doran, and teachers Bourassa and Jim St. Onge, would almost certainly have been his last.

Craven said that although Arrowsmith restored Harper’s heartbeat with the AED “in about a minute,” the teen wasn’t yet out of the woods. “He was lost again in the hallway, and there were about four more life-saving maneuvers that were performed on the way to the hospital,” Craven said.

Harper was first rushed to Southern New Hampshire Medical Center in Nashua, then flown – in 16 minutes, according to mom Deb Harper, who accompanied him – to Children’s Hospital Boston.

A lot of things went through his head as he lay at Children’s Hospital Boston recovering, Harper said. One vow he made, for instance, was to swear off of junk food forever.

“Well, I guess that’s been broken a little bit since I got home,” he said Monday with a sheepish grin.

Const. Robin Chiasson — a former nurse — responded to a call at James Keating Public School to find school staff attempting CPR to revive the student.

Brandon Koskitalo the Survivor

Vice-principal Sarah Knight said students who had been playing with the boy rushed to the office to alert her after he collapsed.

“I asked the secretary to call 911, grabbed the automated external defibrillator (AED) and headed to the school yard with Shirley Taylor Banks, a board employee who is a registered nurse.

“We were joined by Arlene Spiess, an educational assistant. The officer was there within a minute of us starting procedures and took over.”

She and Const. Peter Hunter, who arrived seconds later, took over administering CPR and Chiasson used the chool’s automated external defibrillator to test the boy’s heart.

The machine indicated she should deliver an electric shock, then resume CPR, which she did, while Hunter assisted with restoring the boy’s breathing.

“As we continued the CPR, I could feel his heart suddenly start pounding and he began breathing,” Chiasson said.

Brandon Koskitalo, 13, was rushed to a hospital in Midland and transferred by air ambulance to the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. The boy reportedly had a history of cardiac illness.

Knight said yesterday that the student was in stable condition and that his family was with him.

Chiasson — who has three children — said there was “a moment when I envisaged this being my own child . . . you have the will that tells you not to give up; you do what you have to do.”

Chiasson said it was “amazing how the community came together as team. It was the most positive outcome we could hope for.”

Brandon, who underwent surgery to have an internal circadian pacemaker (ICP) placed in his chest in order to prevent a reoccurrence, said the incident let him know how severe his heart condition truly is.

“I hope that they put the AEDs in all the other schools because it can happen to anyone – parents, teachers, students.”

“Words are just not enough…. I don’t know what to say,” he said. “I am only here because (these people) did what they were supposed to do correctly. I am lucky to be here.”

On the afternoon of June 17, physical education teacher James Landsverk asked his students to run one mile in laps around the track.

James Landsverk the Saviour

During his second lap, soon-to-be sophomore Henry Flores collapsed and did not respond when nearby classmates called out his name.

Teacher James Landsverk told supervisors he saw the student’s eyes roll back and heard him gasping.

The teacher performed CPR, yelled for one student to call 911 and another to get the school’s automated external defibrillator.

The student running to get school nurse Celeste Dillard found her in her office. Dillard didn’t know why Flores had collapsed, so she grabbed an EpiPen, radio and medical basket.

“I ran down the hallway, past the office on purpose,” Dillard said. “I said, ‘Guys, there’s something happening down on the field. Turn your radios on.’”

Landsverk used the AED to shock the student’s heart muscles back into a regular rhythm.

Dillard had to run across not only half of the school but also the entire football field, because Flores had collapsed on the south side, away from the main entrance. She took over CPR until the ambulance arrived.

Within minutes, aid personnel were on scene and able to get Flores to breathe on his own.

“At that point, I go into a different mode,” Dillard said. “We have a parent to call, we have distraught students, a distraught teacher and three kids who were standing there.”

School staff ushered students into the gym, where counselors and the school psychologist were waiting for them.

“We gave a quick heads up to the students,” Dillard said. “We said, ‘He’s in good hands now. He’s alive. We’ll give you more information.’”

He was taken to Seattle Children’s Hospital Medical Center and is recovering, a district spokesman said.

Hazen students made a large “get well” banner for Flores to hang in his hospital room.

“When he was waking up, he was able to see the sign,” Dillard said. “His mom liked it, too.”

When Dillard called him a few days later, she was able to talk to Flores himself. He had no prior health condition known to the school and had made the mile-long run before with no problem.

Landsverk worked in the district for two years as a PE teacher and assistant football coach knew how to operate the AED after training he received last fall.

“I really just reacted and began doing what I’ve been trained to do,” Landsverk said in a press release. “I wanted Henry to be OK.”

Dillard praised Landsverk and his students for saving Flores’ life.

“It definitely takes teamwork,” she said. “No one person can stand alone, you must be team oriented.”

The events of May 31 at the Cardinal Fitness on U.S. 30 in New Lenox are still fresh for Suthowski, who said he saw the man fall down after he and Dennis Siears were talking to him.

Denns Siears, Dennis Suthowski & Sherri Graf the Saviours

“We were joking around [and] he just rolled off his treadmill; it took us about 30 seconds to realize what was happening,” Suthowski said.

A salesmen and a resident of New Lenox, Suthowski had previously taken a class in emergency medical treatment.

“I thought I’d be an paramedic, but the cut off age is 35. I never thought it’d come it handy,” Suthowski said.

Graf, a preschool teacher from Frankfort, also had EMT training and was able to assist by compressing the man’s chest to keep his blood flowing.

“When I came up he was as blue as blue can be,” Graf said. “The instructions were in my head on how to do the chest compression, so I just reacted.”

According to Siears, a Frankfort resident, Cardinal Fitness Manager Hans Schultz retrieved an automated external defibrillator.

“I went to call the ambulance and then Suthowski was on the respirator and I was on the defibrillator,” Siears said.

“Slowly he was starting to breathe,” Graf said. “It happened in about five or six minutes, but it felt much longer.”

Through it happened in a span a minutes, Suthowski, Siears, Schultz and Graf gave a man back the rest of his life.

“It’s acts of heroism like this that mean the difference between life and death,” New Lenox Fire Chief Jeff Swanson said.

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

David Duke the Survivor

Feb. 13 started like a typical day, Duke said. The classes he taught that morning passed without incident, and he had just started his planning period. His last memory was standing at the classroom podium. What happened next, he learned from his co-workers.

Martha Wissler, a math teacher whose classroom is next to Duke’s, heard the loud thud caused by Duke collapsing and striking the wall with his head and shoulders.

Wissler, who was teaching a class, went to investigate and found Duke unconscious on the floor. A second teacher who happened to pass by, called 911 and the school’s administration office. That same teacher also alerted a registered nurse who happened to be at the school that day to teach a workshop.

Carrie Higdon, an assistant principal at the school, said when the defibrillator was hooked up to Duke, it indicated he had no pulse.

A single jolt from the machine, however, restored his pulse, and moments later, paramedics were rushing Duke to the hospital.

Duke was in a coma for five days. Doctors were able to clear a clogged artery that caused the heart attack. He returned to teaching seven weeks later.

Looking back, Higdon said the entire episode happened so fast, nobody had time to think. She considers it good fortune that it all worked out the way it did.

“It was one of those things where everything fell into place the right way,” Higdon said.

Duke, however, attributes his second chance at life to divine providence. He said the experience has tightened the bonds he has with his colleagues, especially those who acted so quickly to save his life.

“I’ve hugged them all several times,” Duke said. “I can’t thank them enough.”

“I would be a very strong proponent of every school having at least one,” he said. “I cannot stress their importance enough.”

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

Mike Spillman the Survivor

“Mike, 17, collapsed in the school gym during a pickup basketball game.

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.