Chain Of Survival, Citizen AED Use, Makes The Difference Again

 

 

“Push Button To Shock,” the AED unit told her.

Dee Norflee, a recreation director at Summit Lake Community Center in Akron, Ohio, had just watched the 55-year-old man take what could be his last breath. Only seconds earlier he was sprinting up and down the basketball court. She did as instructed and felt like she was being shocked as she watched the patient’s body jerk. He began to make a gurgling noise that meant he was breathing again.

The patient was revived by paramedics a second time on the way to an area hospital but is now doing well, and credits Norflee’s quick actions with saving his life. His basketball teammates honored Norflee with a plaque and fruit basket, and she will be recognized Thursday by Akron as the city’s Employee of the Month for January.

The incident, which occurred Nov. 29, is one of three in the past six months in which someone used an AED in a city-owned building.

An Akron fire captain used an AED on Tony Gorant, a retired Ohio Edison and Akron General Medical Center executive, during an Akron Planning Commission meeting July 8. Though Gorant was revived, he died a few weeks later.

Akron employees tried to use an AED on a city employee who was found Jan. 3 lying on the floor of the men’s locker room in the CitiCenter Athletic Club. The unit didn’t deliver a shock because the man didn’t have a shockable rhythm. It was too late for him to be revived.

“An AED is one of those things _ a tool _ that, under the right circumstances, with the right timing, can provide you with positive results,” Akron Fire Capt. Dale Evans said. “Sometimes that’s not the case.”

Evans said the patient was in good physical shape, his problem was recognized early, Norflee and others at the community center quickly provided him with help and he survived.

Norflee remembers sitting in the community center office, feeling sorry for herself before she had to spring into action to help Skinner.

“I was sitting there complaining,” recalls Norflee, 32, who is also a substitute special education teacher for Akron Public Schools and an assistant boy’s varsity basketball coach at Buchtel High School. “There was so much going on.”

“Do you see that?” her co-worker suddenly asked.

Norflee looked into the gym from her office and saw somebody slouched over. She dialed 911 and told them to hurry; they had a possible heart attack.

In the gymnasium, basketball players, spectators and attendees from the Narcotics Anonymous meeting in the adjoining room buzzed around, with everyone wanting to help.

One person said they needed to elevate Skinner’s legs. Someone said to grab a chair. Norflee told them they needed to lay Skinner flat.

A nurse who is the wife of one of the players started CPR. Norflee’s co-worker grabbed the AED and, together, they ripped open Skinner’s shirt. Norflee paused for a moment, perplexed because the AED wasn’t identical to the one she had been trained on. She then noticed an illustration inside that showed her what to do.

Skinner let out a noise, expelling his breath, and Norflee knew he was gone.

The AED, which had been reading Skinner’s rhythm, told her to push the button. Norflee told a man touching Skinner’s shoulder to back off and then pushed the button. It delivered an immediate shock that made Skinner jump.

“It felt like I was shocked,” Norflee said. “You go through the class, but it’s nothing like the real deal.”

Skinner made a gurgling sound that told Norflee he was breathing. He didn’t immediately come to, though, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

“Why isn’t it going off again?” someone asked.

When the paramedics rushed in, Norflee told them, “He was gone for about three. Then pressed. One shock,” an accounting she later realized didn’t quite make sense, but was enough to get the point across.

Norflee worried, until a firefighter who made a run to the community center about 45 minutes later because of a blown fuse told her that her patient was in Akron General Medical Center’s emergency room, singing.

“Tears of joy came so fast,” she said. “It was a relief.”

Her patient doesn’t remember singing in the emergency room.

In fact, he doesn’t remember much until he woke up in the ER with a sore chest and his sister,  at his side.

 

Doctors said he suffered a heart attack brought on by dehydration and a partially blocked artery. In the days that followed, they pumped him full of fluids, used a cardiac catheter on him and put in shunts and a pacemaker.

 

Good fortune dictated that this  heart attack was in a place that had an AED and where someone was trained to use it. While there are very few places that are REQUIRED to have them at this time, more and more clubs, organizations and businesses are making the decision to invest in an AED and proper, regular training. At the end of the day, it’s more than a budget we’re responsible for.

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ABOUT AEDS

AED stands for automatic external defibrillator. It restores spontaneous respiration and a pulse.

How easy is it to use? Often, they work with the push of a button that triggers step-by-step voice prompts. The steps are normally to place patches on the person’s chest, turn on the unit, stand back and push a button to administer a shock.

How effective are they? Terry Gordon, a retired Akron General Medical Center doctor who has pushed for more AEDs to be available, offered these statistics:

_ Every minute a person is in cardiac arrest decreases the chance of survival by 70 percent.

_ When you call 911, the average response time is eight to 12 minutes.

_ If you call 911 and do nothing else, the chance of survival is 3 to 5 percent.

_ If you call 911 and do CPR, the chance of survival increases to 6 to 9 percent.

_ If you call 911, do CPR and use an AED, the chance of survival jumps to 50 percent or more.

_ How much do they cost? $1,000 to $2,000.

_ Is training available? There are many ways to get trained in CPR and AED use. Newport Enterprises is one of many organizations offering training through the American Heart Association and the American Safety and Health Institute.

Portions of this blog were reprinted from the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal