15-year old ALISON has little recollection of the days preceding her heart attack. She said she woke up on July 20 feeling her “normal self.” What happened next she does not recall, but, her mother does.
Deborah Roney was in the computer room in her house at about 1:15 p.m. when she heard gagging sounds coming from the kitchen. She called out to her daughter, “Alison, is that you or the dog?”
When she received no response, Deborah Roney made her way into the kitchen. She found Alison on the floor, gasping for breath.
Deborah Roney called on her CPR training and began trying to save her daughter’s life with cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.
Deborah Roney’s 9-1-1 Fairfax County call came in at 1:25 p.m., and an ambulance left the Vienna fire station at 1:26 p.m. It, and a fire truck, pulled up at 1:29 p.m. At 1:30 p.m., EMTs were in the house. Three Vienna police cars responded, as well. When the rescue team arrived, Deborah Roney entrusted Alison’s life to them.
“The real story is that they [the Vienna EMTs] got here so quickly and did such a great job,” said Jack Roney.
Alison was intubated with fluid lines and blood draw lines within minutes. The Roneys later found out that Alison was shocked twice with a defibrillator, once at the house and again in the emergency vehicle.
With IV lines already in-place, Alison spent little time in the emergency room. The treatment Alison got at home and en route saved precious minutes in the emergency room at Inova Fairfax Hospital. She was transported shortly after arrival to her room in the intensive care unit.
A staffer from the emergency room stopped by Alison’s room a day or two later. Jack Roney said the woman seemed to be “in awe” of the care that Alison received by the EMTs.
“It’s not so much about us as it is about the efforts of the fire and rescue service,” said Jack Roney. “Their incredible professionalism saved our daughter’s life.”
Alison Roney spent nine days in ICU, much of the time under sedatives. She recalls very little of her whole experience. Her first ingestible meal, spaghetti, came four days after her heart attack. Her mother said she ate and she remembers that. In the hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit, Deborah Roney was called “the mom who saved her daughter’s life.”
Alison Roney left Fairfax Hospital with a defibrillator implant. The life-saving device, known as an ICD, is a small battery-powered electrical impulse generator. When the implanted defibrillator detects arrhythmia, it sends a jolt of electricity to the heart.
“I feel good, normal,” said Alison, a rising sophomore in George C. Marshall High School’s International Baccalaureate program. “Doesn’t seem like any of this happened, except for the scar. I just expect to be alive.”





















