Two teachers from a Texas middle school are being credited with saving a seventh grade girl’s life after her heart stopped beating in the school hallway, MyFoxDFW reports.The twelve year old, Kylee Shea, was on her way to gym class when she says she suddenly felt tired.”I decided to sit down, and then I fell forward and I don’t remember anything,” Shea said. That’s when Shea collapsed and stopped breathing. Her classmates called for help, and two teachers, Kristen Goodgion and Brent Reese immediately began performing CPR. “Everything that’s in your mind is you’re just panicking. You see Kylee on the floor. She’s not responsive,” Reese said. The CPR proved not to be enough and the teachers knew they needed to do more. On the wall near them was an automatic external defibrillator (AED) and luckily for Shea, both teachers had been trained to use it. Later, doctors told her parents the AED had saved her life. Shea had a heart arrhythmia, meaning her heart was beating rapidly but not pumping blood. Although they aren’t sure of the cause, she now has a pacemaker in case it ever happens again.”It just goes to show the importance of having these devices…having the proper training to use them, said Kylee’s mother. The seventh grader will return to school next week. Reese and Goodgion will be honored at a special assembly in honor of their life-saving work.

If not for his coaches’ quick action, 17-year-old Ross Palmer would be dead.

The American Falls, Idaho, football player collapsed Tuesday evening while running wind sprints. Two of his coaches started cardiopulmonary resuscitation while another ran into the high school to grab the school’s new AED, a portable heart defibrillator.

“Sudden death in athletes is quite common in the United States,” Crandall said Friday. An estimated 1,000 die each year of unknown heart defects. “If [Ross] had not been shocked,” Crandall said, “no way would he have come out of that.”

While the family was impressed and grateful for the surgery he had, what they most wanted to emphasize is the need for more AEDs, in schools, malls, and everywhere, and for more people to obtain CPR training so lay people can jump in to help save lives.

“That’s the purpose of it. You don’t have to wait for the ambulance,” said Ross’ grandmother, Bobbie Branch, a nurse educator. “The problem is there aren’t enough of them.”

On 5/6/2011 during the Eastern Shore Senior Games at Salisbury University, a participant experienced a sudden cardiac episode which caused him to collapse while playing volleyball. First responders assessed the situation and began CPR while someone ran and got the AED on site. One shock was delivered and the patient’s pulse and breathing were restored. His life was saved by the quick reaction of first responders and having an AED accessible! Rescue One Training For Life, Inc. is proud to have partnered with Salisbury University to help supplement their life-safety program by donating AEDs.

Earth Treks Climbing Center, Timonium, MD
August 3, 2009
Ken and Helena Jester were enjoying a climb at the Earth Treks Climbing Center, when suddenly Ken looked like he was hanging in his harness. His wife quickly began to lower him. Two other climbers who happened to be nurses, realized Ken was unconscious and checked his pulse and heard him gasp for air. Andrea began chest compressions and Lynn administered rescue breathing. At the same time a former employee at Earth Treks grabbed the AED device they bought for their facility. Kel followed the simple instructions and after the device’s first shock, Ken’s heart resumed beating.

“The AED saved his life,” says Kel. “It brought him back and saved time and minimized damage to his heart.” By then, the fire department and ambulance personnel had arrived and Ken had regained consciousness.

“The key was the immediate defibrillation,” says Lynn, who had lost a 27-year-old friend when an AED was not on hand at a volleyball game. “You can administer CPR forever, but unless you can shock the heart rhythm, the chances of an out-of-hospital rescue are slim.”

Washington DC–A guest in cardiac distress at the hotel restaurant was revived by an AED and a normal heart rhythm was detected before the EMS arrived! The hotel staff received their training from Rescue One and their AED was purchased and maintained by Rescue One.

CHICAGO – Fans of TV emergency room dramas already know the drill: shout “Clear,” place the paddles on the chest and watch the lifeless heart patient revive.

When that drama takes place in an airport or shopping mall, bystanders using battery-powered defibrillators may be saving more than 500 lives every year in the United States and Canada alone, researchers reported on Monday.

“Good Samaritans, when given access to automated defibrillators in potentially fatal emergencies, save lives,” Dr. Myron Weisfeldt, a cardiologist at  <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21654200/> Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who worked on the study, said in a statement.

The devices are designed to treat sudden cardiac arrest, a potentially deadly event in which the heart stops contracting and fails to pump blood properly.

The laptop-sized, portable defibrillators come with a full set of instructions, guiding even untrained bystanders through the rescue process. Once electrodes are placed on the victim’s chest, the machine analyzes the person’s  <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21654200/> heart rhythm and delivers a shock if needed.

The study, conducted in 11 cities in the United States and Canada, involved an analysis of patient records from more than 10,600 incidents of cardiac arrest called into 911 emergency telephone lines.

Bystanders administered CPR in nearly 30 percent of the cases and offered CPR plus an automated defibrillator in 2.4 percent of the cases, Weisfeldt told an  <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21654200/> American Heart Association meeting in Orlando, Fla.

“Only 259 patients had an AED applied by a bystander. Their survival is very good. If they needed a shock and the device shocked them, they had a 36 percent survival rate. That compares to the overall survival rate of 7 percent,” Weisfeldt said in a telephone interview.

Wider use needed
Because the automated defibrillators are in public places where people tend to get fast emergency care, the researchers figure survival rates with a defibrillator are about 2.5 times better than with CPR alone.

“If the same thing is going on in the rest of the United States, there may be as many as 522 lives being saved by AEDs,” Weisfeldt said.

He said the study makes the case for wider use of the devices.

“If you’ve got a building with 1,000 people and the cost of putting in the device is $3,000, it means $3 per person is the cost of having it, which is less than the cost of the latte I had this morning,” he said.

About 300,000 Americans die from sudden cardiac death each year.