First Aid Corps

The life of a Grissom Middle School teacher was saved Friday when she was revived with an automated defibrillator, or AED, after she collapsed in a classroom at about 9 a.m.

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The teacher, whose name and other health details have not been released, was taken to Palos Community Hospital by paramedics and is now in stable condition, said school nurse Anne Connelly-Mitros.

The teacher was sitting in her chair in a classroom with students when she fell to the floor without warning. Students were moved out of the classroom and Connelly-Mitros reported with the defibrillator.

“The AED was used on her because I did not feel a pulse,” she said, adding that it was the first time school officials have used one of its AED’s in an emergency.

“Once I realized it was a life or death situation, I just got into a mode that we had to do what we had to do,” she said. “We were very organized and it worked out very well.”

A social worker spoke with students from the class and made calls to their parents to explain what happened. Asst. Principal Annette Szczasny said the students were concerned about their teacher but they are being updated on her condition.

“We have let them know that she is in good hands and that there is constant contact between her family and the school,” she said.

As the day was winding down, Connolly-Mitros said the school was filled with a sense of relief that staff members had acted quickly and that their colleague was OK.

“We’re very, very happy here today,” she said. “As terrible as the situation is, it went smoothly.”

Superintendent Mike Byrne said he was thankful for the quick thinking of the school’s staff and for the defibrillator.

“It seems to me it really prevented something that could have been tragic,” he said. “We’re glad the AEDs are here and they did what they were supposed to do.”

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.”

The young man lay on the ground, his body having just received a jolt of 13,800 volts of electricity from a power line.

Craig Nedell, Robert Mancinelli & Jerry Wainio the Saviours

He had no pulse.

He was lifeless.

Angel Caguana, 23, of Brockton and another roofer had been struck by an electrical current when a ladder they were moving off a house in Bridgewater fell back and came in contact with nearby utility wires.

Fire Lt. Robert Mancinelli, who was among the first emergency crews to arrive on the scene, said Caguana had no pulse.

“I’ve never had anything this serious,” Mancinelli, a 24-year fire veteran, recalled later.

Mancinelli, 47, and firefighters Jerry Wainio, 32, and Craig Nedell, 46, worked on Caguana with a defibrillator, which gives a therapeutic dose of electrical energy to the heart to start it beating again.

As bystanders watched, the rescue workers shocked Caguana once with the defibrillator and administered CPR for about five minutes before they finally got a pulse, fire officials said. All three are paramedics.

Wainio said he has worked on “a lot of people” and “most don’t come back (with a pulse).”

Caguana “was really young and that’s a huge contributing factor. He actually left here with a pulse and breathing on his own,” Wainio said.

Caguana, still unconscious, was picked up by a medical helicopter at the St. Thomas Aquinas Church parking lot on Center Street and flown to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston with serious injuries.

The hospital could not provide a condition for him on Wednesday. The Fire Department said Wednesday evening that he is in serious condition, but would probably not sustain any permanent neurological damage. However, he did suffer some severe burns, according to the Fire Department.

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.”

A contractor doing electrical work at the Lawrence Township Department of Public Works facility was electrocuted this afternoon (Friday, July 8), but coworkers, township police officers and emergency medical personnel teamed up to restart the man’s heart and restore his breathing, township police department spokesman Lt. Charles Edgar confirmed.

The contractor, 24-year-old Zaed Quituqa of Haledon, was listed in critical condition at Capital Health Regional Medical Center in Trenton this evening, he said.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) initiated by Quituqa’s coworkers and continued by Officer Shawn Carroll and Sgt. Michael Yeh, along with the use by the police officers of an automated external defibrillator (AED), was credited with saving Quituqa’s life, Edgar said.

Standing on the elevated platform of a scissor-type lift, Quituqa and a coworker from I & T Electrical Lighting of Paterson were working on overhead lights in the public works garage in the 200 block Bakers Basin Road when the accident happened about 3:15 p.m., Edgar said.

Police are still investigating exactly what happened, he said, but somehow Quituqa came in contact with electricity.

When his coworker realized Quituqa was being shocked, the coworker used his foot to kick Quituqa clear of the lighting and anything else he might have been touching, such as the metal rails for one of the garage’s overhead doors, according to Edgar. The coworker was not hurt, he said.

The coworker quickly lowered the lift and he and others moved Quituqa from the lift to the floor. He was not breathing and had no pulse at that time, Edgar said.

While a public works employee dialed 911 to request assistance, he said, Quituqa’s coworkers started CPR.

Carroll and Yeh soon arrived. Confirming that Quituqa was in cardiac arrest, they connected a defibrillator to Quituqa and delivered an electrical pulse to his body in the hope the targeted shock would jumpstart his heart into beating correctly again, Edgar said. After the delivering the shock, Carroll and Yeh resumed CPR.

After about two minutes of them performing CPR, Quituqa’s heart began beating again and he started to breathe, he said.

Lawrence Township Emergency Medical Service personnel and paramedics from Capital Health System then arrived to take over patient care. They quickly bundled Quituqa into an ambulance and rushed him to the hospital in Trenton.