By Debra Dibartolo Jul 8th 2010 2:30PM
Three summers ago, I got a phone call from my mother one Wednesday evening, telling me to come straight to the hospital emergency department because, “Your brother’s heart stopped working.” My mother is usually not very excitable, so I was concerned but skeptical. My brother was an extremely healthy, 37-year-old father of two teenage boys. I knew my mother had to be making a mistake, because Brian was coaching football at the school that afternoon and therefore could not be in the hospital. I yelled upstairs to my husband to come with me to the emergency department; that my mother just called and is clearly very confused about something. “She thinks that Brian’s heart stopped,” I told him.

I understand that denial is very powerful. It’s a very strong psychologically-protective coping skill, but I truly was not in denial at that point. I really just thought my mother was confused.

Well, I was wrong. My 37-year-old brother — never sick a day in his life — suffered a sudden cardiac arrest on the high school football field while jogging with the members of his team.

Brian was one of the 600 people who die each day from sudden cardiac arrest. My family’s story is not a story of grief and loss, however. Our school has an automated external defibrillator, and all of the coaches and assistant coaches are educated on how to use it. Some of the teenage boys that he was jogging with ran to the school to get the AED, while another one of the coaches started cardiopulmonary resuscitation and called 911. Prior to the ambulance arriving, they “shocked” him twice and returned his heart to normal functioning.

Brian was hospitalized for five days while the nurses, doctors and technicians tried to figure out what happened and provide him with treatment, so it would not happen again. He was discharged and sent home with no injury to his heart, and a permanently implanted defibrillator in his chest for protection, should this ever happen again.

My brother’s story is not just an occurrence of “good luck.” It is a testament to organizations like the American Heart Association and their Public Access Defibrillation Program. As well as the skill, sound minds and quick responses of the young men on his football team, the other coaches, the volunteer emergency ambulance service in our community and the skill and training of the doctors, nurses and technicians who provided Brian’s care and treatment in the hospital.

Defibrillation is the only treatment for ventricular fibrillation, the condition that Brian suffered from that day. His heart, for reasons we still don’t know, began to beat chaotically and ceased pumping blood, which led to him collapsing and having no signs of life. Per the AHA, for every minute that passes, the chances that someone will survive ventricular fibrillation decreases 7 to 10 percent. So after as little as ten minutes, the chances of survival are very, very slim.

It was not a highly-trained emergency medicine doctor, cardiac nurse or paramedic with years of education and experience that saved Brian’s life that afternoon. The real hero of this story was a coach — one of his friends — who attended a one-day class given by the American Red Cross on how to administer CPR and use an AED.

Attending an AHA class is fun! Attending a class with your friends or family is even more fun. The instructors are not intimidating and they have programs that can be tailored to your specific needs and comfort level. Most of the classes don’t even have a test! What they do have is caring community members teaching other caring community members the skills they need to save a life.

SOURCE: AOL Health

AED saves student’s life
Quick thinking and an external defibrillator helped save the life of a Gates-Chili student. A softball coach and an athletic trainer are recognized after they went into action to save the life of an eighth grader who collapsed at track practice.

People often talk about the quality of life – in this instance, quality of life is measured by something called an AED and people who knew how to use it.

Years of training paid off for Gates-Chili coach Michael Candileri and athletic trainer Julie Savage. The defibrillator couldn’t have been in a better location, just steps from where the stricken girl fell.

Candileri said, “You know, you’re just calming yourself and keeping yourself under control, making sure you’re doing everything correctly. The only thought in your mind is to save this girl.”

Savage used the defibrillator to give eighth grader Olivia Fish the initial shock. “The AED analyzed her again and said continue CPR — all good signs that she didn’t need to be shocked again.”

“You know, for a split second, you thought about what you were doing and then I stopped thinking and I said I just have to do and I can’t think,” Candileri said.

Paramedics took over when they arrived but the coach said, that’s when he thought about what ultimately could have happened because when the outcome was still uncertain when the girl was taken to the hospital.

But everything went right that day. Both were recognized at the school by the Red Cross. The shock Savage delivered and the CPR saved the girl’s life.

Both the coach and the athletic trainer have had a chance to see the girl and they said just seeing and talking with her — that’s been the most gratifying thing.

She is still in the hospital but is expected to go home soon. The school district said her family has expressed its gratitude for all that’s been done.

SOURCE: whec.com.

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Frankfort boy hopes his experience will urge more people to learn CPR

12-year-old Frankfort boy hopes his heroics in Wisconsin last month will urge more people to learn CPR.

Cameron Harper was with his family at the Cranberry Country Lodge in Tomah, Wis., on Feb. 6 when another little boy was pulled unconscious from the water, according to the SouthtownStar.

Cameron, who had taken two CPR courses in the last year, put his training to work and eventually helped revive the 5-year-old.

“I’m glad I paid attention in class,” Cameron told the newspaper,

It was first-hand experience of the importance of the life-saving technique.

“If everybody, or at least one person in a business or household, knew CPR, I think a lot more lives would be saved every day,” he said.

Receiving CPR minutes after cardiac arrest can double the chance of survival for a person, according to the American Heart Association.

Jerry Johnson, the fire and life safety educator with the Mokena Fire Protection District, where Harper was trained, said he’s heard estimates than an additional 100,000 to 150,000 lives per year could be saved if everyone above age 10 knew CPR.

“I think everyone should be trained,” he said.

Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/health/cameron-harper-cpr-86445742.html#ixzz0iPCgICFD

Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/health/cameron-harper-cpr-86445742.html#ixzz0iPCVlSSI

Source: nbcchicago.com

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Further studies and guidelines needed to assess potential CPR differences in obese children

MONDAY, Feb. 22 (HealthDay News) — Obese children who undergo cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in the hospital are at greater risk of dying before hospital discharge than normal weight or underweight children, according to a study published online Feb. 22 in Pediatrics.

Vijay Srinivasan, M.D., of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and colleagues reviewed 1,477 cases of pediatric CPR during hospitalization in 167 participating hospitals in the National Registry of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation for the period 2000 to 2004. The researchers associated pediatric obesity or underweight to the primary outcome of survival to hospital discharge.

Of the 1,268 children included in the analysis, 213 (17 percent) were obese, 571 (45 percent) were underweight, and 484 (38 percent) were normal weight. In-hospital CPR quality was generally deemed of worse quality in obese children due to problems establishing an airway, less effective chest compressions, and dosing uncertainty for pediatric advanced life support medications. The researchers found that obesity was independently associated with diminished odds of event survival (odds ratio, 0.58) and survival to hospital discharge (odds ratio, 0.62) after in-hospital CPR, compared to normal weight children. No association was seen between underweight and worse outcomes.

“Childhood obesity is associated with a lower rate of survival to hospital discharge after in-hospital, pediatric CPR. Future pediatric CPR investigations and guidelines may need to address potential differences in CPR and advanced life support for obese children,” the authors write.

SOURCE: modernmedicine.com

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The El Cerrito High School boys basketball team was up by roughly 40 points late Tuesday, the game safely in hand, when coach Michael Booker heard his players yelling at him urgently.

“Coach! Coach! Coach!” they shouted.

When he looked, Booker saw that one of his players, who had been sitting on the bench after having played, was having a seizure. Over the next few minutes, the boy’s pulse stopped. It happened just four days after a high school basketball player in nearby El Sobrante collapsed during a game and died.

The El Cerrito player was in an incredibly fortunate position. Immediately on hand were three people trained in CPR – a firefighter, a nurse and a police officer. Booker, the coach, is also a Richmond police lieutenant. The three revived the boy and kept him clinging to life until paramedics showed up and took over the life-saving response.

The boy was transferred to Children’s Hospital in Oakland, where he was breathing on his own on Wednesday, but will still need time to fully recover.

“Honestly, I think God was looking out for him,” said Booker. “It was kind of the perfect situation. It was the right people at the right time to help him stay alive.”

High school athletic fatalities are incredibly rare – roughly 1 in 256,000 over the past 28 years, according to a University of North Carolina institute that studies the issue. But the cases are always dramatic, because they involve children. And they’re gaining attention in the public eye – from the state Legislature to Congress.

It was unclear Wednesday whether CPR was performed immediately on Joshua Ellison, the player who died Friday, before paramedics arrived. Ellison, co-captain of the Calvary Christian Academy team from El Sobrante, played the first 5 1/2 minutes of the game against Veritas Christian Academy, then slumped over after sitting on the bench for several minutes, his coach told The Chronicle last week.

All high school coaches are required by California law to be trained in CPR, said Roger Blake, associate executive director for the California Interscholastic Federation, which regulates high school sports.

“The key is the coach, the adult that’s there knowing what to do when it happens,” said Blake. “They’re the first responder. They’ve got five to seven minutes until paramedics get there.”

When the El Cerrito player collapsed, a nurse who was a teammate’s parent came down from the stands, said Booker. So did Daniel Rice, an Alameda County Firefighter, parent of another teammate.

They positioned him on the ground with his knees up, but then the boy stopped breathing, Booker said. The coach had someone call 911, while he and Rice began doing CPR.

After what seemed like 90 seconds, they were able to get a pulse, Booker said. But soon, the boy’s pulse stopped again. So they restarted CPR.

When the El Cerrito Fire Department showed up – five minutes after the 911 call – the boy had a “quivering” heart rate, said Battalion Chief Michael Pigoni.

A defibrillator was used to shock the boy and get a stronger pulse, Pigoni said.

Thanks to Rice and Booker, “We were able to find him in a shockable rhythm,” Pigoni said.