First Aid Corps

Alan Barney was able to sit up over a plate of spaghetti in his Saint Mary’s Hospital room Tuesday, hoping to spend Thanksgiving at home with his two sons, thanks to three employees at Reno Concrete Inc.

Barney, 58, a technician with the city of Reno’s public works department since 1999, was cutting roots for a project off of Robb Drive last week while the contractors with the concrete company were working nearby.

“Alan was bent down, he was sawing on a root and told our guys that ‘I’m getting too old for this,’” said Mike Popejoy, the owner of Reno Concrete, on Tuesday. “Then, he just passed out and fell backward.”

That’s when Raul Castillo, Bill Nagel and Jose Garcia started CPR and got one of the defibrillators stashed away in one of their work trucks. First responders arrived about a minute later, Popejoy said.

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them,” Barney said from his hospital room. “Their guys showed up and saved my cookies.”

It wasn’t the first time Reno Concrete had faced a life-threatening situation. One of their employees suffered a heart attack three years ago, resulting in the company buying the defibrillators and training everyone how to use them, Popejoy said.

“You don’t think you’re ever going to use it,” he said. “But it was sure nice to have.”

After the heart attack, Barney woke up a couple of days later with tubes running into his body while his two sons, Justin, 18, and Ryan, 21, stayed by his side.

Barney had triple bypass surgery Saturday but was hoping to leave the hospital by Wednesday. And while he’s not sure about Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, his sons said they’ll likely delay their holiday dinner by a couple weeks to let their father recuperate.

Barney said he’s now thinking about retirement after nearly 33 years of public service, including jobs in Lassen County, Calif., and with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

And as families sit down around table to say what they’re thankful for this week, Justin Barney said that’s an easy question to answer: The men and the machine that helped save his father’s life.

“I think Reno should increase more of the defibrillators in the contractor trucks,” he said. “Because if it wasn’t there, he wouldn’t be here right now.”

John Porter at the NewPage Duluth paper mill said a few thank-yous to some co-workers Tuesday.

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Nothing big, they just saved his life is all.

Porter, 55, was at work in the mill’s control room July 6 when he suffered a sudden cardiac arrest. He doesn’t remember the heart attack, but he remembers waking up in the hospital and being told that his co-workers had saved his life using their training and an automatic external defibrillator.

“I’ll never look at these guys the same way again,” Porter said.

The saviours included Tiffany Johnson, Nevada Torrence, Cathy Baker, Steve Blank, Tim Morris, Steve Ratte, Lonnie Simonson, Richard Swanson, Bryan Blazejak, Jay Pederson and Matt King.

Newport Business Association (NBA) had been renovating the village’s railway station with Essex Probation Service Community Payback team at the weekend when a man in his 40s, a member of the team, fell faint and collapsed. Emergency services were called.

When talking through the incident, the operator called for the Newport Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) unit – a portable electronic device that automatically diagnoses the potentially life threatening cardiac arrhythmias – to be used.

NBA founder Jeremy Rose rushed to his car and drove to the unit situated by The Pharmacy in High Street, which was installed last year.

“I must admit I was a little stressed to get the unit out in time,” said Mr Rose, who has been trained. “I keyed in the code, which I always keep on my mobile phone, grabbed the unit and rushed back to the station platform in under five minutes.

“The man had been convulsing and having tachycardiac spasms, so deploying the AED unit was deemed vital.

“Just knowing that the unit was ready was reassuring. We were on hand, the unit was ready and used within five minutes.”

Emergency services responded quickly, with the ambulance arriving within nine minutes of the call going out.

“As anyone knows, if you have heart failure, you need to revive the heart within an eight minute window of opportunity, otherwise a person can die or receive severe brain damage,” explained Mr Rose.

“We’ve trained a seven-year-old and an 87 year-old resident to use the defibrillator. Anyone can use the unit. The fact that we got there within five minutes is hugely gratifying.”

A local company honored some of its employees on Friday for their efforts in saving a co-worker’s life.

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Back in May, one of the employees at ECR International suffered a heart attack in the Customer Service Department. A signal code red alerted other employees in the building who are trained as first responders and the employee’s pulse was restored with an automated external defibrillator.

Director of Human Resources Johnita DeMatteo says the incident was life changing for all involved.

“I was really very concerned about the employee, hoping that he was going to be okay,” DeMatteo said. “I just did what I had to do. I really didn’t think about it. Your adrenaline kicks in and you just do what you have to do.”

Al Schmidt is still trying to forget May 12. It was a hot and sunny afternoon, typical for the opening day of the Southeastern Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

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Seconds after a heat of the decathlons’ 400 meters, Schmidt, the director of Mississippi State University track and field, felt dizzy. A shortness of breath followed.

Al Schmidt the Survivor

Still struggling to breathe, he scanned Spec Towns Track in Athens Ga., for MSU track coaches Steve Dudley and Houston Franks then walked toward them, holding a copper container with glycerine pills. He reached for Dudley where he collapsed, falling into Dudley’s arms, the beginning of his latest fight for his life.

Time, which track coaches constantly monitor, was in short supply.

By the time Dudley took the top off the pill bottle, Schmidt’s jaw had locked. So he rubbed the medicine on his gum line to get it in his bloodstream. It had no effect.

Scar tissue from a triple bypass surgery was causing an arrhythmia — an irregular heart beat — disrupting his heart’s normal functions, blocking blood from traveling throughout his body.

If not corrected, Schmidt’s heart would stop. His skin started to turn blue.

“I checked his pulse,” Dudley remembered. “It was a light pulse but not a good pulse.”

Shocked, athletes surrounded Schmidt. Dudley yelled for an ambulance and medical assistance. Dr. Donald Lazas, the father of a runner from the University of Arkansas, ran from his seat in the stands and performed CPR. Ron Courson, an athletic trainer at the University of Georgia, retrieved the on-site automated external defibrillator (AED).

Schmidt’s pulse returned after the defibrillator’s first administration, then faded. He flat-lined.

It was administered again. This time, his pulse returned and settled, allowing Schmidt’s heart to re-establish an effective rhythm.

Emergency medical support was still en route, but the entrance gate was closed. MSU freshman James Harris ran toward the gate and pushed it open as the ambulance arrived, saving four to five minutes it would have taken EMS personnel to enter the track through a different gate. With cardiac arrest, four to five minutes is long enough to suffer brain damage.

Schmidt, already the survivor of a heart attack in 1998, was now stable and communicating with EMS personnel. He was transported to Athens Regional Medical Center, where he received cardiac catheterization.

Before leaving Athens, Schmidt endured two surgeries — a second bypass surgery and a pacemaker and internal defibrillator installation.

Six weeks later, when MSU introduced new softball coach Vann Stuedeman, most of MSU’s coaches were on hand to welcome her.

Schmidt was there, too, showing no physical effects of open heart surgery. In fact, he told MSU Director of Athletics Scott Stricklin he walked two miles that day.

“To see him not just doing better but feeling good enough to come into work is great,” Stricklin said.

Though he can’t recall the length of time that passed while he was in cardiac arrest, Schmidt understands the mechanics of what happened.

“It couldn’t have happened in a better place,” said Schmidt, who said later learned Athens Regional Medical Center is the top cardiac facility in the area. “If this would have happened at the hotel or someplace else, I would have been a goner.”

Today, the only difference in his life is that he doesn’t run and feels minor chest pain near the surgical incision.

He walks with his wife, Jessie, in Humphrey Coliseum to maintain his cardiovascular regimen.

He doesn’t enjoy walking; he’s a runner, accustomed to logging four to five miles at a time. To Schmidt, walking takes more physical effort than running. After all, he has run 84,000 miles since he started keeping a log during his freshman year of high school, dating back 44 years.

As mundane as walking is, it’ll have to do for now.

“We did two-and-a-half miles yesterday and the pain he’s still experiencing in his chest is probably because it’s still inflamed,” Jessie said. “I think once that subsides to a level where he can accommodate it he’ll get back to running.”

His pacemaker is set for a heart rate of 200, so doctors are comfortable he can return to running full time. The defibrillator in his chest will provide the electrical jolt needed if he goes into cardiac arrest again.

“They say it’ll feel like a mule kicked me in the chest,” Schmidt said.