Tag: CPR

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Pennsylvania athletic trainer saves teen’s life at lacrosse camp

Article reposted from The Morning Call
Author: Sarah M. Wojcik

It’s a scene all athletic trainers and coaching staffs train for, but one they never hope to see: an athlete collapses, unresponsive.

During a lacrosse camp Sunday at DeSales University, a 17-year-old boy from Montvale, N.J., fell in a heap on the ground. Staff rushed to his side; among them Catasauqua Area School District athletic trainer John Capozzolo.

He saw the teen collapse face-first from the corner of his eye. He and a colleague tore off the teen’s helmet and pads. Immediately, he could tell the teen’s breathing had stopped and his pulse was undetectable. Capozzolo wasted no time.

“I kind of just went into a zone,” the trainer said Friday. “I heard nothing around me other than the people right next to me. Everything in my head was playing in order, like in a book.”

Capozzolo, in his 13th year at Catasauqua , was at the event to help with staff shortages. He started CPR and delegated. He asked Matthew Brancaccio, head lacrosse coach at DeSales, to fetch an automated external defibrillator and had another trainer call 911.

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Athletic trainers jump into action to save student’s life

Article reposted from Fox 29 San Antonio
Author: Darlene Dorsey

Last week, MacArthur High School athletic trainer –Chad Sutherland had to jump into action.

“This was my first and hopefully my last to every use It,” said Sutherland.

He and another trainer, Jeff Schmidt, worked together to use an automated external defibrillator went a student lost consciousness, last Tuesday.

They worked quickly to help resuscitate the high school junior who they said had no known history of heart issues.

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Sutherland says the student with doing typical drills with other students outside.

When he returned to the building, he had difficulty breathing and collapsed, said Sutherland.

When they opened the AED case, the trainers also immediately dialed 9-1-1 to get EMS on the way.

The AED uses voice commands to help you know what to do.

“You can see it’s telling you where to place each pad,” said Schmidt.

Sutherland hopes others won’t be afraid to get basic CPR training to help someone in a medical emergency.

Chad Sutherland, “If this was your brother or sister or mom or dad, you would want to act so if someone is having problems you would want to help them out as well.”

SAFD Fire Chief Charles Hood will stop by MacArthur high school Tuesday to thank the trainers. He considers them heroes.

The chief says AED or automatic external defibrillators are in many public places like schools, airports, malls or stadiums.

“about 350-thousand people suffer heart attacks every single year,” Hood said.

He hopes others will consider basic CPR training to know how to use an AED. It takes just four minutes he says, for someone in cardiac arrest to lose oxygen to the brain.

But knowing how to use the device, until medical professionals arrive, could help save a life.

“It can happen at any age.

Anywhere. It can happen anytime. What this does is turn an everyday person into a hero because you’re going to be able to follow directions,” said Chief Hood.

The American Red Cross and American Heart Association of San Antonio have information about training to help you know how to use the automated external defibrillator.

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Texas Athletic Trainers Use AED to Revive Football Player on Field

Article reposted from KENS5
Author: James Keith

Parents send their children to school every day assuming they’ll return home. But that didn’t happen Tuesday for the family of a MacArthur High School football player who briefly lost his life on campus.

Brianna Major will never forget the phone call she received about her brother, Kenny Major.

“They told me they just had to do CPR on him and I lost it,” Brianna recalled.

Kenny collapsed on the football field. The details were hard for her to hear.

“His heart did stop. He wasn’t breathing. They did have to revive him,” Brianna said as she held back tears.

MacArthur trainers Chad Sutherland and Jeffrey Schmidt are used to seeing students injured or sick, not dead.

“It got real pretty quick when I came out here and Coach Sutherland had already begun compressions and I knew he wasn’t breathing just by looking at him. He was already becoming pale,” Schmidt said.

Schmidt grabbed an AED. Using the device and providing multiple rounds of CPR brought Kenny back to life.

“I kind of feel like I was floating outside of myself and just doing all the procedures and everything we had been taught,” Sutherland said.

“There was a brief time my brother was gone, and not just from me and my family, but from this world. It was the worst pain I ever felt,” Brianna said.

Kenny is now recovering in the hospital. To his sister, the two and the coaches who helped her brother are heroes.

“I don’t feel like a hero. I feel like that’s what I’m trained to do and what I went to school for, why I do what I do,” Schmidt said.

“I don’t feel like a hero, I just did my job,” Sutherland said.

“When the emergency happened, our guys did what they’re trained to do and they saved this young man’s life,” said Ben Cook, MacArthur’s head football coach.

Brianna has this advice for everyone who hears her brother’s story:

“No matter what happened, no matter what your sibling ruined in your personal mind, make sure they know you love them,” she said.

Parents of high school athletes wanting to have their child’s heart screened have an opportunity this weekend. August Hearts will conduct screenings at Alamo Stadium on Saturday.

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California High School Athletic Trainer leads team in life-saving effort

Article reposted from The San Diego Union Tribune
Author: Elizabeth Marie Himchak

Two hours before last Friday’s basketball games, Rancho Bernardo High’s head athletic trainer, Robbie Bowers, reviewed with his team its emergency protocols.

They do the review frequently so — on the rare occasion their skills might be needed — they are ready to act, he said.

The fourth quarter of the boys game against Westview became that rare occasion.

“I heard a commotion going on and my wife sitting nearby yelled something to me,” he said. “I started to rip my jacket off and went up (the bleachers).”

Robbie Bowers
Robbie Bowers (Courtesy photo)

There he found a Westview staff member’s grandparent — Rancho Bernardo resident Bill Parkhurst — in medical distress, which Bowers said he identified as cardiac arrest.

“I immediately started chest compressions, my intern from SDSU brought the defibrillator and my athletic trainer prepped his chest,” Bowers said on Monday when asked to recall the incident. Among others who stepped in to help was Westview’s athletic trainer, Christina Scherr.

Parkhurst had been sitting on the bleachers’ top tier with the wall behind him, so that was the perfect spot to perform the lifesaving actions, Bowers said, adding it would have been difficult to move him.

An automatic external defibrillator — AED for short — indicates if the person needs to be shocked to get the heart going. It indicated a shock was needed and after the AED applied electricity to the man’s body Bowers said he began chest compressions again. After 30 seconds, Parkhurst started to show signs of life, making sounds and, when asked, was able to correctly say his first name.

As all this was going on, another staff member called 911 and additional staffers went to the two campus entrances to meet paramedics and direct them to the correct venue, Bowers said.

Bowers, who is certified in medical procedures through the National Athletic Trainers Association, said there is a difference between sudden cardiac arrest and heart attack. He said the latter is triggered by a blockage in the heart’s arteries and in many cases the person does not lose consciousness. In sudden cardiac arrest the heart stops, the person loses consciousness and if the heart is not returned to a normal rhythm the person could die within minutes.

In his three decades in the field (27 years at RB High), Bowers said this is the second time he has been called into action like this. The first was about 10 years ago while at a game in Riverside. In that case the man had an extensive history of heart attacks and cardiac disease, and an AED was not available. “The ref died doing what he loved,” Bowers said.

This time, the result was dramatically different. Bowers said he heard through a third-party that the man is hospitalized but doing well, and that night his family told Bowers that his swift efforts “appear to have saved his life.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Barbara Jean Parkhurst said her husband was undergoing surgery. She said she had not wanted her husband of more than six decades to attend the game, but is now glad he did because if he had collapsed at home the outcome might have been different. She credits Bowers and the others with saving his life.

While trained in how to use an AED, Bowers said this was his first time to deliver a shock. He said it is so simple even someone without training could do it.

“It turned out (using an AED) was exactly like we trained,” Bowers said. “It’s that easy. You do not have to be specially trained.”

He said RB High has three AEDs — one in the nurse’s office, another at the pool’s lifeguard tower and a third in the gym, near his office, which due to protocol he takes to games, keeping it nearby just in case.

“(Robbie) and his team’s response was perfect,” said RB High Principal Dave LeMaster. “They basically saved a life. … I was impressed to see them in action.”

Bowers said because of their frequent protocol reviews everyone knew what role they had so the rescue was “seamless.” However, Bowers said he couldn’t sleep that night and he reviewed the situation repeatedly to see what they could do better in the future. The team has also discussed its efforts.

“We could improve on crowd control, because it was a little bit of an issue hearing the prompts,” Bowers said, adding he was so focused on what he was doing that he did not realize the game was stopped. “But we did have a lot of support in maintaining modesty of the patient.”

He added, “Every experience is a learning opportunity. I’m very proud of (my team’s) response.”

 

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Athletic Trainer, Teachers and Defibrillator save student’s life

Article reposted from Savannah Morning News
Author: G.G. Rigsby

An automated external defibrillator (AED) was used to save the life of a student at South Effingham High School on Dec. 12, marking the first time the equipment was used to save a student.

The student participating in after-school soccer conditioning collapsed, became unconscious and stopped breathing, Assistant Superintendent Yancy Ford said in a report to the school board.

CPR was started while the AED was brought to the scene and 911 called. The student was shocked twice before responding and was transported to Memorial Hospital, Ford said.

“He was stable and doing well,” he said. “He was later sent to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta for testing and followup treatment. This was the first time we have needed to use the AED on a student. The SEHS staff in attendance responded quickly and appropriately and with the help of the AED saved the young man’s life.”

Staff members involved in the rescue were presented with Hero Award certificates, as part of Georgia Project Heart Save.

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Wisconsin Athletic Trainer Performs CPR, Saves Life

Article reposted from The Waunakee Tribune
Author: Roberta Baumann

A Waunakee JV basketball player will receive a warm reception today when he is released from Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa.

Michael Saxby, 16, was competing in a game Dec. 27 at West Allis Central High School when he suffered sudden cardiac arrest, according to a press release from Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa.

Athletic trainer Scott Barthlama performed CPR on the Waunakee player until paramedics arrived. They then performed CPR and used an automated external defibrillator (AED) to keep Saxby’s heart pumping.

Saxby was transported to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with a genetic heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, according to the press release. It is a disease that causes a portion of the heart muscle to be enlarged and is the leading cause of death in young athletes.

AEDs are placed in West Allis Central High School through Project ADAM, a Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin project. It has saved more than 100 lives nationwide, according to the release.

Saxby was greeted by members of the West Allis Fire Department, West Allis Mayor, Waunakee School officials and medical staff upon his release from the hospital.

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Texas Athletic Trainer and Patient Reflect on Life Saving Day

The last thing that Temple High School sophomore De’Aveun Banks remembers about the day he collapsed was attending track practice on March 30 at Wildcat Stadium.

No warning. No preexisting condition. No way this would be the end for the 16-year-old student-athlete who lay motionless on the ground with a faint pulse.

De’Aveun’s mother, Shanee Banks, and Windee Skrabanek, an athletic trainer for the Temple Independent School District who administered CPR to De’Aveun in those crucial moments before the ambulance arrived, talked about the near-tragedy publicly for the first time Monday.

Skrabanek said it was like an ordinary day at work, until a couple of her athletic training students ran into the training room yelling for her.

“You feel that sense of urgency and you start running and kids are screaming your name,” she said. “And when I got there — he was on the ground.”

An overwhelmed Skrabanek broke down into tears recalling that specific moment. The mood in the room was heavy as De’Aveun rolled over to her in his chair placing his arm around her shoulders — comforting the athletic trainer who saved his life.

“I started just rubbing on his chest saying, ‘De’, De’, De’ — can you hear me? Hey! Talk to me! Talk to me!’” Skrabanek said.

When he didn’t respond all 15 years of Skrabanek’s experience as an athletic trainer took over.

“That is when you go into the emergency action plan,” Skrabanek said.

What Skrabanek describes may have seemed like organized chaos, with coaches calling 911, her shouting protocol commands and students standing back in disbelief.

 Skrabanek said they immediately brought out the automated external defibrillator, a portable device that can diagnose life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias and can deliver electrical therapy as needed.

As they waited for the ambulance, during that 5-minute window, Skrabanek worked on De’Aveun.

“At this time we are checking for a pulse,” she said. “It was at that time we stuck the pads on and the AED (defibrillator) takes over from there — so then that becomes your coach.”

The defibrillator, which uses verbal and visual commands while keeping track of time and each action taken, initially surveys the condition of the heart.

“Those 10 seconds of analyzing seemed like 15 minutes,” she said. “But then it did a shock right away and then says, ‘Check airway. Check breathing. Check circulation. Start CPR’— and then I started CPR right away.”

She went back and forth with CPR as the defibrillator sent shocks to De’Aveun’s chest.

 “The fact that he was already getting five minutes of care prior to them getting there … it was a miracle that he was where he was and we had personnel there with the right equipment,” she said.

De’Aveun was transported to McLane Children’s Scott & White Hospital. After being in critical but stable condition, he was airlifted to Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston where he received specialized pediatric heart care in the intensive care unit for 2½ weeks.

“No history, no health issues. He has always been — just healthy,” Shanee said.

Skrabanek said doctors, who are still running tests, are leaning towards a condition called myocarditis. It is the inflammation of the heart that often has no symptoms and can occur as a result of an infection.

De’Aveun returned to school April 18, less than three weeks after his collapse. He now wears a LifeVest under his shirt. It is a wearable defibrillator that monitors his heart and provides feedback to doctors in Houston.

“They are reading it 24 hours, but mostly while he sleeps,” Shanee Banks said.

He meets regularly with his doctors in Temple to monitor his progress.

De’Aveun hopes to return to a winning Wildcat football team as a linebacker — as of right now he is not allowed do any physical activity.

“He works with his position’s group in the mental aspect,” Skrabanek said. “He motivates and helps coach them up.”

His mother said she is supportive of his return to sports.

“That is his passion. It is what he loves and has been all he has known since he was 6,” Shanee said.

As for De’Aveun, the second oldest of three siblings, he said he is not worried about the future.

“I am feeling great,” De’Aveun said.

“He is back to the same old, bubbly, smiling kid that is full of energy,” Shanee said. “It is a blessing! I am overjoyed, but overly protective now.”

De’Aveun said he is grateful for Skrabanek and her efforts.

“I am glad she was there, at the right time — to bring me back,” De’Aveun said.

“This is the best reward right here,” the trainer said, tapping De’Aveun on the knee. “Seeing him throughout was amazing. It wasn’t just me, it was everyone who worked together to follow the actions that needed to take place.”

Shanee said she not only appreciates his classmates and school who were excited for his return, but the entire community rallying behind her son.

“The community, people near and far,” Shanee said. “…We are blessed. He is blessed. We are just grateful that he is here with us.”

CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL ARTICLE

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Pair of Athletic Trainers Save Sportswriters Life

Today is a day for the lucky. Might as well write about the luckiest guy I know.

Marty Myers knows this could have been his obituary, that perhaps under an only slightly different set of circumstances, it would have been. It’s not. Thank God, it’s not. But, it comes that close, sometimes. One minute, you’re alive. The next, you’re dead.

Then, the next, you’re alive again.

This is the story of our longtime colleague in the sports department at The Times-Tribune, and judging by the outpouring of support he has received from many of you over the last week, Marty needs no introduction.

But for those of you who don’t know, the 59-year-old sports writer traveled to Freedom High School in Bethlehem last Friday to cover an important girls basketball game. Dunmore against Imhotep Charter.

He drove to the game. Got out of his car. Walked through the parking lot. Said hello to the workers sitting at the desk collecting tickets. Stared in through the gym’s doors to see Dunmore’s players getting ready to warm up.

Next thing he knew, he lay on a bed at St. Luke’s Hospital in Bethlehem, doctors bustling around him.

He had no idea how he ended up there.

Still doesn’t remember a moment of that gap in time.

The scary truth is he collapsed before he ever took a step into the gym that night.

Fell so violently, he struck his head on the floor in the Freedom lobby.

Needed 17 staples to close the gash that caused. But in the long run, it went down as the least of his issues.

The cause was sudden cardiac arrest. Marty stopped breathing. And, he had no pulse.

Consider, for a second, what you would do if you saw this happen, if the difference between a shot at life and certain death rested on your ability to act.

Consider, also, the type of people you’d want around you if something like this ever happened to you.

The people Marty had around him were Maureen Burke and Dana Bennett.

Talk about luck. Because in that moment of sheer terror, Bennett — the athletic trainer at Freedom — started performing CPR.

And Burke — Dunmore’s athletic trainer — recovered Marty’s heart beat with the use of an Automated External Defibrillator that Dunmore trainers bring to every event.

On Tuesday, doctors gave Marty an implanted cardioverter defibrillator, which will help control life-threatening arrhythmias — like the one he had — through electrical pulses.

And Wednesday, he headed back home.

“I can’t ever repay them. I just can’t,” Marty said of Burke and Bennett, his voice cracking. “I’m having some difficulty dealing with that emotionally.”

By the very definition of the sacred word, Burke and Bennett are heroes. They possessed the know-how to save a man’s life. And, they saved it.

That doesn’t make it any less scary to think what might have been.

What if he collapsed a half hour earlier, with nobody around?

Or a half hour later, in a lobby too congested for help to get through quickly and easily?

Most of all, what if this happened in one of the many other schools in the state, or if Marty had been covering a game played by one of many other teams, who didn’t go above and beyond Pennsylvania law to have an AED at the ready?

Fortunately, the PIAA requires any site that hosts a district or state playoff event in any sport to have access to an AED.

What happened to Marty can happen to anybody.

According to the American Heart Association, more than 420,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests are assessed by EMS teams every year in the United States.

About 90 percent of victims, it says, die before they can receive necessary help.

Quick action through the use of an AED and CPR, the association says, is the only way to help. The AHA estimates survival rates can drop by 10 percent per minute.

Burke has been a trainer at Dunmore for nearly a decade, and the first person she used the AED on was Marty Myers.

Even before her hiring though, that school district recognized the need to have defibrillators on site to help students who may need it.

But, she knew first-hand how important they were.

A few years before she graduated from Notre Dame High School in East Stroudsburg, on Dec. 2, 2000, a popular basketball player at the school named Greg Moyer collapsed at halftime of a game against East Stroudsburg North.

There were no AEDs on site, and the nearest hospital stood 20 minutes away.

Moyer was 15, a star athlete and a popular kid.

And that night, he died. His parents set out on a years-long mission to put AEDs in every school, nationwide.

It’s a mission that is still waged today.

According to the nonprofit Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation, only 23 states require them on site at schools. Pennsylvania is not one of them.

“The biggest difference to me in the last 15 years was that I didn’t know then what an AED was,” Burke said. “Back then, we had a community and a school who found out why they needed them. Now, we have two schools and a community who can point to them and know why they are there.”

Marty is proof of how much good a change in the law could do.

In our most dire moments, we’d all want what he got.

A fighting chance.

A device that could give it to us.

And, of course, guardian angels.

CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL ARTICLE

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WV Athletic Trainer helps to save life

Friday Hurricane High School students will gather in the gym dressed in red, form a heart, snap a picture, and hit send.

That picture will be a show of solidarity for Andrew Parks, a high school freshman who dropped in the school’s gym earlier in the week.

The school’s athletic trainer, Brian SIgman, ran and performed CPR until paramedics arrived.

“I would never want to do that again,” said Signman. “I hope I never have to. The students did what they had to do, I had to do what I had to do, and hopefully we made a difference in this young man’s life.”

Andrew’s mom is a teacher in the Putnam School District. Thursday there was an outpouring of support all over the county.

Winfield and Hurricane have a friendly rivalry on the ball field. That rivalry melted away, as Winfield students and staff wore red as a show of support.

“Basically, in the end, it’s just a game,” senior Ryan Daly said. “We just wanted to show the family support and that we’re here to do whatever the family may need.”

By late Thursday afternoon, Facebook pages were being shared that Andrew was off the ventilator in a Cincinnati hospital and breathing on his own.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to help the family with medical bills.

You can find it searching: “Andrew Parks Medical Fund.”

ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
http://www.wsaz.com/home/headlines/Students-Show-Support-for-Student-Who-Collapsed-in-Gym-352034211.html