By Gina Mayfield

Four hours after a new colleague arrived for his first day on the job with Buckhead Meat Co., he took a seat in the sales manager’s office for training. Just a few minutes later, the manager noticed his new hire had slumped over in his seat. “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” the manager started to yell, which alerted others in the area that something wasn’t quite right.

Diane Mazza, who happened to be nearby, passed the office, glanced in and instinctively knew to quickly grab the AED. When she returned, things had not improved. “He was still not moving. He had a blue hue to him,” she says. “I asked the sales manager and another bystander to put him on the ground.” She began CPR. “I figured I needed to get blood flowing to his brain. That’s all I’m thinking, I’ve got to get air into his lungs,” she recalls.

Diane could hear the 911 call in the background as she ripped off the man’s shirt, which revealed a large scar clearly indicating a surgical incision over his heart. Still, the 911 operator gave her permission to immediately began chest compressions and breaths. “I didn’t check for a pulse because I wasn’t sure if I could find it. My adrenaline was out of control,” Diane says. “I was going to just keep doing CPR until help arrived, because nobody wants to die at work.”

That help arrived in a coworker, Carmen Christeleit, who opened the AED. “I put on the pads and shocked him twice. We got nothing,” Diane says. Diane and Katie Carbone, another coworker who had stepped in to help, took turns performing CPR while a crowd had gathered just outside the windowed office willing their new colleague to just breathe.  

EMTs arrived in record speed and unloaded their AED. When asked if they wanted to take over, the EMTs responded that Diane and Katie were “doing a great job” and finished prepping their AED. An EMT soon took over CPR, while Katie continued breaths. Once the AED was set up, they administered a shock. The colleague jolted and looked up at Katie. “I called his name and he looked at me again, which was a great sign. He knew his name and what direction to look. He finally woke up,” she says.

EMTs loaded the survivor into the ambulance, but he lost consciousness again, then came back around and began speaking coherently. With lights and sirens, the ambulance took off for John F. Kennedy University Medical Center in Edison, New Jersey. But, come to find out, the survivor lived about an hour and a half away in Pennsylvania and was training to expand the sales territory in that direction.

Patricia Benjamin, another colleague, stayed with the survivor in the hospital as his wife, back in Pennsylvania, quickly worked the phones to arrange for medical transport. He continued to improve. “He was up, he was pink, which was fabulous to see, but I had never even met him before that moment,” Patricia says. “His personal belongings hadn’t made their way to him, he didn’t have his glasses, and he didn’t know anybody. We quickly became friends.”

The colleague, in his late 50s, knew that without his rescuers the call to his family would have gone very differently for his two young sons, aged 10 and 12. “He was very, very emotional and very thankful,” Patricia says. “Turned out that he had a pacemaker that did not have a defibrillator attached to it. Needless to say, it does now. But that was the thing, the pacemaker couldn’t restart without the defibrillator.”

Before being transported back home, the survivor jokingly told the nurse on duty that he felt like the luckiest man alive and was going to play the lottery numbers 5/20 for the rest of his life, referring to the date of his rescue. “Don’t be greedy,” she quipped with a smile. “You just won the lottery of life.”

Truth be told, he was extraordinarily fortunate to have been surrounded by trained rescuers at the moment of his cardiac arrest, and not alone at home as he was in the days leading up to his new job.

Buckhead Meat Co., a division of Sysco Food Service, offers regular on-site CPR training at no cost to employees and ensures people from each area of the building participate. Katie had attended a recent session that she says made a real impact. “It was the first time I’ve had formal CPR training, so obviously I’m very grateful that we were given that opportunity through Sysco because the training was fantastic. The mankin provided helpful feedback regarding rate and depth of compressions. The training definitely made a difference in this outcome.”

The AHA is committed to transforming a nation of bystanders into a Nation of Lifesavers. Join the movement that can make a difference in the life of someone’s partner, parent, friend, or family.

By Gina Mayfield

One evening after work, as Ingrid Zuniga Izquierdo relaxed in the living room of her multigenerational home, her sister was bathing her 1-year-old daughter, Leslie, who had been fighting some chest congestion. After a vapor bath, Leslie was halfway through a diaper change when she let out a little whimper and turned purple. Ingrid’s sister scooped up Leslie and went screaming to the living room.

“My niece was purple, she was like a rag doll, she had no motion,” Ingrid says, “She was choking. She wasn’t breathing. My sister was panicking.” Ingrid, who has children of her own with respiratory issues, was ready. “I’ve taken CPR classes, so I know the drill. You go into that mode and do what you.” she says. Ingrid placed Leslie on the floor and immediately started child CPR, with compressions and breaths, while her sister called 911.

By this point, three generations of the family had gathered around. “The kids were crying as they were seeing what was going on, my mom too, everybody was just panicking. I was just in that mindset of ‘Okay, I have no time to panic. Either I’m going to do something about this, or it’s not going to end well.’” Ingrid says. “I was able to get Leslie to come out of it. As soon as she took her first breath, her color started to come back.”

Soon after, the EMTs arrived, assessed Leslie and took her to the ER where the doctor told Ingrid’s sister, if Ingrid hadn’t administered CPR, they would be dealing with a “completely different story” due to oxygen deprivation and what that does to the brain.

Leslie spent the night in the hospital and her parents got to take her home the next day. While doctors are still running tests to determine the full story, they suspect a contributing factor was phlegm from chest congestion that blocked Leslie’s airways.

“I told my sister, ‘I’m glad I was around. What would you have done? Leslie needed air, she needed help,’” Ingrid says.

“This whole experience was such an eye opener, it motivated my whole family to learn CPR. My mom doesn’t know much English, so my parents went to El Concilio, the Hispanic American Council, and they taught them to do CPR. I tell people not to allow a language barrier to stop them from learning CPR, you could save a life. I’m even teaching my 9-year-old daughter,” Ingrid says.

“People tend not to worry about things until they happen to them. But you never know when you’re going to need CPR,” Ingrid says. “I’m so thankful Leslie’s still here.”

Paramedics Boyd Hansbro and Gabriel Morales had just finished transporting a patient to the hospital on July 7, 2023, when a dispatch call came in just after 1:30 p.m. in Grand Prairie, a suburb in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

The call noted that a person had collapsed at the gym.

“Ninety-nine times out of 100, it’s someone who has overexerted themselves because they’re lifting and they get up and pass out,” Boyd said. “So it doesn’t raise any alarms for us.”

The emergency was outside Boyd’s service area. But as Boyd and Gabriel, who work for the Grand Prairie Fire Department, were on the closest ambulance, they headed to the 24 Hour Fitness where the person had collapsed.

As the ambulance was en route, Boyd received updated notes from dispatch that the person was not breathing. Boyd knew immediately the situation was serious.

A fire truck had arrived on scene first. The truck’s crew of first responders  – Chris Sieg, Pat Schuster, Thomas Haire and Brent Flath – had started CPR on the 17-year-old, Black patient named Jaylen Floyd. The first responders also shocked him two times with a defibrillator. They also applied an airway device to open his airway and administered epinephrine. Boyd and Gabriel soon arrived at the scene. Boyd served as the lead paramedic.

“It turns into business,” Boyd said of the EMS response.  “We know what we need to do. And that is regardless of the surroundings really. We know what we need to do to take care of whatever we’re dealing with the best way that we know possible.”

As part of Boyd’s role, he gathered as much information about what happened from  Jaylen’s friends who told him that it appeared Jaylen had been resting on the curl bar. However, a gym member who was nearby looked at Jaylen and realized he wasn’t breathing.

Boyd learned the gym member had started CPR before first responders even arrived. Boyd said this lay responder was the unsung hero in the situation.

“Apparently they were doing a fantastic job,” Boyd said of the lay responder. “That person probably did more than anyone to make sure the outcome was good for Jaylen.”

The team of first responders were at the scene for about 15 minutes before Jaylen was transported by ambulance to Medical Center of Arlington. Boyd said they also had to shock Jaylen while in the ambulance.

About a minute away from the hospital, Boyd was providing bag-valve-mask ventilations to Jaylen when there was a moment that surprised him.

“He sucked that bag completely out of air,” Boyd recalled. “I was really hopeful at that point. I was like ‘Man, he is going to make it.’

Boyd said he had never had a patient completely take one big breath like Jaylen did while providing bag-valve-mask ventilation.

Jaylen was first hospitalized at Medical Center of Arlington for a couple of hours, and then was transported to Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth where he spent five days in the ICU.

Tracy Floyd, Jaylen’s mother, said doctors diagnosed Jaylen with long QT syndrome, which caused the cardiac arrest. He now has a subcutaneous implantable cardioverter defibrillator and takes betablockers. She said he is healthy and doing well.

“He is doing absolutely amazing,” she said. “We were truly blessed.”

Jaylen is a high school senior who played the alto saxophone in the band at Timberview High School. He graduates on May 24, 2024, and will attend college at Oklahoma State University.

“He really is a good kid,” Tracy said. “He has given me no problems throughout his tenure of being a teenager, and so I’m very grateful for that for sure.”

Jaylen, Tracy and the rest of their family met with the team of first responders who treated him. Hugs were exchanged. Tracy said she is forever grateful to the EMS professionals who responded with urgency and compassion.

“You cannot replace a human’s life,” she said. “There are not enough thanks you, hugs, money. It’s priceless. I’m extremely grateful. I have the utmost gratitude for the care they provided and for the selflessness of the first team to go ahead and respond after finishing up a call and it wasn’t even their call to go to. So my hats off to their work they exhibited before the second team arrived and came.”

Tracy is also thankful for the lay responder – a stranger – who immediately started performing CPR on Jaylen. She said the lay responder’s actions demonstrate the importance of the public learning CPR especially as research has shown that Black children are less likely to receive lay responder CPR.

In a study published in 2022 in the American Heart Association’s flagship journal, Circulation, the findings showed that Black and Hispanic children are less likely to receive bystander CPR than white children during an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

“The message I would have would be to please learn the basics for starting chest compressions or using an AED. He is a Black kid. You’re not likely to respond to a Black child or Black person unfortunately….. he is a kid who has a full life ahead so the importance of a lay responder just to learn and just to do compressions, it can save a life. It literally saved a life. It saved my son’s life,” Tracy said.

Each year, EMS Week is celebrated in the United States. This year’s EMS Week marks the 50^th anniversary that the tradition has been held. EMS Week honors the dedication and commitment of EMS professionals. It represents a time to express gratitude for the lifesaving work that EMS workers do.

Boyd said he is glad Jaylen is doing well and he’ll remember this EMS Week how he and his fellow first responders worked to save his life. Boyd also said he encourages the public to learn CPR and not to rely on learning CPR from the movies where the technique is usually not shown properly because the rescuer is not pushing down hard enough.

“Learn the basics of just chest compressions and save a life,” Boyd said.

Linette Castro, a school nurse at Winfield Scott School No. 2 in New Jersey, had only been working at the campus for a few months when a student suffered cardiac arrest.

During the morning of Oct. 24, 2023, Linette was in her office when the school’s security guard told her that her help was needed. As Linette walked out of the office, she saw principal Shante Rorie running towards her, yelling the name of the boy who needed medical attention. Linette immediately knew who the student was because she was aware that he had an underlying heart condition and wore a pacemaker.

Linette and Shante ran to the hallway where the boy was laying on his back on the floor. Linette rushed over to him. She checked for a pulse and also put her stethoscope on his chest. She didn’t hear a heartbeat. The boy’s pacemaker had failed.

Shante called the front office staff and asked them to call 911. Linette started CPR as  Shante went to go get the AED.

As Linette performed CPR, it dawned on her that she was the only nurse on site. She had spent most of her nursing career in a high-adrenaline neonatal ICU with a team of healthcare providers. But now she found herself responding to an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in a school environment where there was no back-up nurse.

“I knew in that moment – I had to stay calm,” Linette said. “How was everyone around me going to stay calm especially when everyone has not been in a life-or-death moment like this?”

Shante watched as Linette administered CPR to the student, who had turned blue. His mouth was open, and his eyes had rolled back into his head.

“She is working, and she is so focused,” Shante recalled. “She is working and not stopping.”

As Linette peeled off the stickers on the AED pads, the situation seemed surreal to her.

“I can’t believe I’m having  to do this and use an AED on a child,” she recalled thinking.

Linette said the AED advised a shock and after the shock was delivered, she resumed CPR. The fire department  soon arrived and transported the student to the hospital. Shante said a hospital official called her twice to commend Linette’s lifesaving actions.

“The head of the cardiac department, he called me the first day and said, ‘Listen I want you to know what she did was extraordinary because she saved him, “ Shante said. “He called me the next day because he was still awestruck.”

The student survived and recovered. When the boy returned to the school, it was a bittersweet moment for both Shante and Linette who each gave him a hug.

“Her and I are pretty emotional people, so we got choked up,” Linette said.

Before Linette joined the staff at Winfield Scott School No. 2, Shante said there was another school nurse who had been there for many years. Then, Linette was transferred to the campus, which Shante believes happened for a reason.

“This amazing person was able to stay calm and get all the tools she needed without even a moment of hesitation,” Shante said of Linette. “He was gone. He was no longer with us. And she saved his life. And we talk about the fact she wasn’t even our nurse, and she came to our building. And we think this was her purpose. She is living her purpose.”

Shante described Linette as a thorough, conscientious and kind person who goes above and beyond what her responsibilities are to make sure the health needs of students and staff are met.

“She has really transformed how medical care happens in our school,” Shante said. “We used to have tremendous, long lines for students coming in. She has streamlined that. She is able to have the kids come in, give them what they need, quickly assess  and keep the kids who really need attention.”

In recognition of her lifesaving work, Veronica Valentine Frazier, Linette’s friend and peer, nominated her for the AHA Heartsaver Hero award.

“The way Linette reacted to the event and how she was able to perform CPR – she was the only one capable,” Veronica said. “She worked with the student for six minutes alone. That is extremely difficult. So the way she was quick to respond – she knew exactly what to do. She was able to delegate and try to explain to staff exactly what she needed.”

Linette received her Basic Life Support completion card from AHA. She said the steps for carrying out CPR that she received in AHA training crossed her mind when she responded to the out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

“Of course I remember the training – the didactic part of it, “ she said. “But mostly it was the actual maneuvers – I think the quality of your compressions – I knew I was giving good compressions. I never doubted that I was giving this child good compressions.”

Linette’s response to the cardiac emergency compelled Shante to become trained in CPR. It also motivated Veronica to establish a CPR training business that trains school district staff.

Linette said her message to other nurses about CPR is you never know when you’ll need to use the lifesaving skill.

“It’s an invaluable tool that you never know you’re going to need, whether it’s in the school setting or the supermarket,” Linette said. “Don’t take it for granted.”