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Workplace Emergency Response Team Saves Co-Worker’s Life with Training and Planning

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By Gina Mayfield

Just after midnight at an automotive plant in the Midwest, a “man down” call went out over the All Call System. Matthew Gochenour, a member of the plant’s Emergency Response Team (ERT), immediately jumped into action and ran to the designated area not knowing what – or who – he would find. There, he found a co-worker he had known personally for a couple of years laying on the ground unconscious.

“I rolled him over and noticed he wasn’t breathing. Then he started taking agonal breaths. I checked for a pulse. There wasn’t one,” Gochenour says. “I called for some of the people nearby to get the AED and started compressions and breaths.”

About three minutes after the call went out, ERT leadership arrived along with Security and the plant’s on-site nurse. At about the same time, a fire protection officer (FPO) delivered the AED to the scene. “The FPO shocked the patient a few times, and on the fourth time he started coming to. We had a pulse,” Gochenour says, noting they worked on the patient for a good 10 – 20 minutes before he regained consciousness.

After the ambulance arrived at the designated door closest to the incident, EMS hooked up a heart monitor and glanced at each other with concern. “Looks like VTAC,” one of them said, referring to ventricular tachycardia, an abnormal heart rhythm that occurs when the lower chamber of the heart beats too quickly to pump effectively and the body doesn’t get enough oxygenated blood.

The patient began to flatline repeatedly as he was loaded into the ambulance and rushed to the nearest emergency room where he eventually had a triple bypass. Weeks after his cardiac arrest, the patient is still in recovery and grateful to everyone who helped save this life.

The ERT eventually got together for a debriefing of sorts, always looking for ways to improve. “Next time I hear that someone’s unconscious, I’m just going to grab the AED,” Gochenour says. Fortunately, the 30-member ERT takes yearly Basic Life Support classes including Basic First Aid, CPR/AED and Stop the Bleed. The team is split between three shifts to ensure they’re always at the ready, which they were during the midnight hour when this incident occurred.

“This was actually my first year of being a part of the Emergency Response Team,” Gochenour says. “So, I was just glad to have that training and understanding of what to do. Instinct took over, and that training kept me in the right line of thought: I need to do what I need to do to get this guy back.”

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.

Construction Worker Trained at Work Administers Hands-Only CPR, Saves Co-Worker’s Life

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by Gina Mayfield

One afternoon, in the late summer heat of North Georgia, four E.R. Snell construction workers were busy on a job site. “We were building a new bridge and had some piles underneath it that we were bringing up to the top of a pretty steep hill,” says Jimmy Wilson, who was driving a tractor that day.  Also on scene was Lamar Henderson and Austin Parker, a guy they called Tiny, who was operating the bulldozer. Plus another employee in his 70s, Ron.

As Ron made his way to the top of the hill, Jimmy’s back was turned to him. “I heard a racket, and Tiny started blowing the horn,” Jimmy remembers. “I got out of the tractor and ran around it to find Ron on the ground unresponsive. He wasn’t breathing. I rolled him over. His eyes were glazed over. There was just nothing there.”

Tiny called 911 and Jimmy started chest compressions. “A few minutes into it, Ron gasped for air, and went right back out with no response. After several more minutes of chest compressions he finally got his breath and started to come to,” Jimmy says.  

Paramedics arrived in about 6 to 8 minutes, just as Ron regained consciousness. “He was incoherent and didn’t know what happened or where he was. The team had to coach him into the ambulance,” Jimmy says. Off Ron went to the hospital where he stayed for several days before returning home with a pacemaker and his wife who encouraged him to retire, which he did.

“The paramedics told us if we hadn’t started CPR, Ron wouldn’t  be here with us now. The doctors said the same thing,” Jimmy says. “Ron is in his 70s, but you would never know it. He would outwork some of the 20-year-old kids we had working with us. That’s just the kind of worker he was. It was just a shock for him to go down like that. He worked really hard every day. You just never know.”

That’s true. Nobody can predict when and where CPR will be needed to save a life. After E.R. Snell’s safety manager, Jason Robinson, joined the company five years ago he soon began providing significantly more First Aid/CPR/AED training classes. As a career retired firefighter/paramedic, he understood the importance of training all employees, not just those on construction sites. He added two instructors and started training and certifying superintendents and foremen, then crew leads, and is working toward a goal of reaching 100 percent of the staff, including the administrative team. He says that’s absolutely doable without interfering with production.

Jimmy had taken one of Jason’s classes just a few months before saving Ron. These days, Jason shares their story even beyond the walls of E.R. Snell to encourage other organizations in their area to make CPR training a priority. When asked, he’ll even teach the class himself.

“If it weren’t for me having that CPR training, we would have been in big trouble that day,” Jimmy says. “We would have been in panic mode, and it wouldn’t have dawned on me to start CPR that quickly. . We might have started compressions eventually, but I wouldn’t have known that time matters. Minutes matter. Seconds matter.,” Jimmy says. “I’m just glad I had that CPR training. In my opinion, every workplace should offer some kind of first-aid training and CPR classes, because it really helped us.”

Bystander Renders Aid in Busy Restaurant

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By Gina Mayfield

Friday nights for Israel Rodriguez and his family often involve winding down the workweek at a local restaurant. On one cold winter night in late January, they decided they were in the mood for Italian and headed to one of their favorite places. Just as they started to dig into appetizers, Israel sensed that something didn’t seem quite right with the family at the table directly across from them.

“I noticed the lady starting to panic. She’s patting her husband on the back, and she’s got this really worried look on her face. She gets up, starts trying to cry for help but can barely get the words out, then she seemed really afraid,” Israel says. The couple’s two little girls just sat at the table in shock. ”I pictured my family in that situation, if that were me,” Israel says, and he immediately got up to help.

“As soon as I started to walk over there to check on the man, his head hit the table,” Israel says. So Israel rushed over and started abdominal thrusts. On about the fourth thrust, what may have been a piece of ice dislodged from the man’s throat. He looked up at Israel and asked, “What’s going on? What happened?” He had completely lost consciousness.

What happened was that in a busy Italian restaurant with a Friday night crowd, only Israel rushed in to help. No one else stepped up, not even the manager or waitstaff. No one called 911. Lucky for Lee, the survivor, Israel had just completed a CPR & First Aid refresher course as a volunteer in the children’s ministry at his church. He and his wife had been taking life-saving courses for years.

Things settled down that night after the rescue, and Israel checked on Lee’s wife and children and made sure they were all okay. Lee’s family stayed and had their dinner — and bought Israel’s meal too.

In this day and age, Israel says that in an emergency people sometimes first think of recording an event, rather than rendering aid. “But a social media post isn’t going to help anybody in a life-threatening situation,” he says. “That was one of the things that really stood out to me about that night. If I hadn’t helped Lee, I don’t know if he would have had any help.”

Looking back, Israel also thinks about fully trained bystanders who have taken CPR courses, yet still hesitate to act because they’re afraid of hurting the victim. “It’s either you do something and give that person a chance, or do nothing and let them die. Step into action and increase their odds,” he says.      

That’s exactly what Israel did on that fateful Friday. Months later, he and Lee are still in touch. Lee reached out on Father’s Day, a holiday that undoubtedly meant a little more this year, especially to Lee’s two little girls who were with him in the restaurant. “It could have gone an entirely differently way that night,” Israel says.

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.

Wife Performs CPR on Husband, Plays Vital Role In His Survival

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By Gina Mayfield

On a typical fall Saturday in October of 2021, Blake and Ashley Burns settled into a routine not unfamiliar to many who call Alabama home. In advance of the University of Alabama football game, Ashley spent the first part of the day in the kitchen and, just around kickoff, offered her husband a slice of freshly baked tres leche cake. Blake decided to hold off due to what he believed was indigestion, then sat down in his favorite chair. Just as he pulled back the lever of his recliner, he became unresponsive.

On instinct, she jumped up and tried to get Blake out of his recliner. The AHA recommends providing chest compressions on a firm, flat surface when possible. Though Ashley was unable get Blake to the floor she started doing chest compressions right then and there. “I could see the color drain from his face. There was no oxygen. I asked him if he could hear me and got no response,” she says. Ashley kept doing chest compressions, then suddenly had a realization: Oh my goodness, I’m here by myself, I’m going to have to call 911 — something she later realized she should have done first.

Ashley & Blake Burns

She gave Blake two quick breaths, grabbed her phone, called 911 on speaker and swung open the front door for the EMTs. “Luckily, we live about half a mile from the fire department. I could hear them turn on the sirens on their way to our house,” Ashley says. Before she knew it, she had a house full of EMTs. Chest compressions commenced and a defibrilator was used. “When they shocked him, they couldn’t get a response, so they ended up having to shock him three times,” Ashley says. Still nothing.

“I got really nervous. I thought, This is not good. They’ve shocked him three times and he’s still not responding. That’s when they told me they were going to have to intubate him and start an IV,” Ashley says. Not long after, they loaded Blake into the ambulance and rushed him to the hospital. Ashley and Blake’s brother met them there.

“I’m going to be honest, we were actually scared to go in. I thought they were going to come out and say he didn’t make it,” Ashley says. Instead, a fireman found them and shared some good news: Blake was awake! Ashley went to see him and found a very active emergency room, as they prepared to put in a stent. Eventually, the doctor on duty had a special word for Ashley. “He told me over and over and over that had I not been there and done CPR when I did, Blake would not be alive,” she says.

After a stay in the hospital, Blake and Ashley returned home to a new normal. Blake quit smoking, eats better and checks his blood pressure twice a day. Both Ashley and Blake completed their CPR training.

Looking back, the warning signs were all there. “I will tell you this, he had every symptom of a heart attack a person can have in the days and weeks prior to this event,” Ashley says. There was jaw pain dismissed by an ENT as a potential sinus infection or possibly arthritis. Then the day before the heart attack Blake suddenly broke out in a sweat at a red light, then developed back pain between his shoulder blades later that night. The next morning came that indigestion, then the heart attack that led to cardiac arrest and Ashley’s life-saving CPR.

“Blake came back around though, he made it through, so that was good,” Ashley says. “I never thought I would have to do something like that at home, or on a family member. But you know, it goes to show, it happens.”

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.