When Todd Tewksbury set out for his routine daily jog back in August of 2014, everything about it felt normal
from lacing up his cross-trainers to the feel of his old t-shirt, nothing stood out as odd to him as he said goodbye to his
mother and set out along his route. He couldn’t have known that in just a few minutes and a few miles, his life was
about to change forever and if not for some quick thinking onlookers, he may have lost it entirely. Of course, how could
he have known? There was no reason to consider that as he approached JFK by the art museum on his typical path, he
would suffer from cardiac arrest and fall to his knees. After all, Todd, a 27-year-old athlete, had no reason to consider
something like heart failure could even happen to him, let alone that it would find himself suddenly slumped on all fours
that summer day along the waterfront.
According to the Mayo Clinic, “Cardiac Arrest is the unexpected loss of heart function, breathing and
consciousness. Sudden cardiac arrest usually results from an electrical disturbance in your heart that disrupts its
pumping action, stopping blood flow to the rest of your body.” Although there is potential to survive an attack it
becomes incredibly minimal if emergency medical treatment is not performed immediately. Because the heart is no
longer pumping blood and vital organs are deprived of oxygen, it is imperative that the individual suffering the attack
receives CPR or treatment with a defibrillator within seconds. Although only 11% of people survive an attack nationally,
that number could greatly improve to 38% if more people to knew CPR. Lucky for Tewksbury, he fell into the 11%
survival rate thanks to a group of strangers who also had a mind to enjoy the Schuylkill River Trail that day.

Dr. Aaron Mendelson and his wife were a few yards away when they rushed to Todd’s side upon seeing him fall to
the ground, they assumed he was having a seizure given that he was a fairly young and athletic man. Once they reached
him however, it became evident that he did not have a pulse and they knew it had to be a heart issue. Arron, a resident
at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and his wife, an ER doctor were very well trained in the emergency
care of Cardiac Arrest and began to administer CPR in attempt to provide Tewksbury’s vital organs the oxygen they
desperately needed. Meanwhile, another concerned individual, part of the small crowd that had gathered around, used
Todd’s phone to call his mother Louis, alerting her to what was happening to her son. As Louis and her family rushed to
the hospital to meet Todd upon his arrival, the group with him on the waterfront administered CPR for a total of 11
minutes at which point two women brought over a defibrillator from a nearby recreational center, delivering a lifesaving
dose of electric current in order to start his heart back up.
Todd is alive and well today and he along with his family are incredibly grateful to the Mendelson’s and others that
stepped in and took action that day. It was incredibly lucky that there were trained medical professionals within the
general vicinity of where the incident occurred, however, Dr. Mendelson says that anyone could have done what he did
to save Todd’s life. The doctors treating him in the days following the attack, noted that CRP was the main factor in his
survival and his ability to walk out of the hospital, without it Todd surely would have died. No small detail to Tewksbury
who noted he would be learning CRP and educating himself in emergency care in the hope that should he ever find
himself on the other end of this situation, he would be able to pay it forward and save another’s life.

Traveling for work can be stressful. Being in an unfamiliar city with no immediate support personnel like family or friends can add to that stress. Having a cardiac episode on top of all that stress can potentially be deadly. That is the story of a co-worker of my wife.

A 60+ year old Sales professional was on business travel when he started feeling ‘off’ while at the hotel. Arm/shoulder pain, feeling nauseated and feeling like he wanted to pass out, he went to the hotel lobby to get help.

Three (3) hotel staffers (all trained in CPR/AED) noticed signs of a heart attack and immediately sprang into action. One staffer called 911. One prepped the hotel’s AED and provided aspirin. The 3^rd staffer attended to him and kept him calm. It was no time before an ambulance arrived. He was transported to the hospital, treated and made a full recovery. A happy ending for certain, but how frightening does that sound? Having to deal with a serious health incident while being miles from home without your normal support network around you is hard to imagine.

When I think of this type of event, I NEVER associate it with being somewhere other than near home where help seems to be conveniently at hand. Some statistics indicate that Monday mornings are one of the more likely times an episode would occur. While that may be supported by statistics, variation exists in almost all statistical data.

This story ended well. But what if the hotel staffers were not educated and didn’t take the right actions?  What if emergency care was not contacted immediately? My wife’s friend got a 2^nd chance thanks to trained personnel who took action. While you may not realize it, your life could depend on medically trained experts beyond the typical police/fire/paramedics. CPR/AED/First Aid trained experts that may be in the grocery store, at work, walking down the street, at the gym or in your hotel. Someone such as this could save your life.

Do yourself and others a favor: Educate yourself.

• There are classes that can be taken to help teach you how to treat someone in need.
• Symptoms can be researched so you can identify when such an event is occurring to you or someone else.
• Learn lifestyle changes that can reduce your chances of having such an event.

“Knowledge is power” is cliché but it may save your life or help save someone else’s. Taking a course as mentioned above could put another potential hero out in public. How good would it feel to say that you helped save a life? How grateful would the survivor or their friends/family be? I’m sure you know of a similar story. Maybe it didn’t have a happy ending. Maybe one trained person could have changed the outcome. Give some thought to being someone who is trained to make a difference.

Cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death in the United States with 326,200 individuals experiencing out of hospital cardiac arrest every year, and ninety percent of those individuals die. Thankfully, Emily Orta was of the ten percent who made it.

At the age of fourteen, Emily was an active athlete who participated in soccer, track and cheer. Her active, healthy lifestyle and her age seemed to make her invincible to such things as cardiac arrest, but during a practice drill, she collapsed. At first, her coach believed she had begun to have a seizure, but soon realized Emily’s heart had stopped.

Her parents were forty-five minutes away when they were called and told their daughter had collapsed and experienced cardiac arrest. The entire time, her mother couldn’t stop wondering how such a healthy, active kid could have this happen to them.

A lifeguard from the school began CPR on Emily, keeping her heart pumping and oxygen moving to her vital organs until a team of first responders were on the scene. They used an automated external defibrillator to shock Emily’s heart into beating again, but if it hadn’t been for CPR, Emily’s heart might have never responded to those shocks.

From there, Emily was admitted to a local hospital, where she was then flown to the University of Michigan’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital where she was diagnosed with ALCAPA. ALCAPA stands for Anomalous Left Coronary Artery from the Pulmonary Artery, which means her left coronary artery was connected to her pulmonary artery rather than her aorta, causing blood to flow to the wrong places. This condition is usually caught during infancy, but Emily made it all the way to fourteen before she collapsed and her heart stopped.

While hearing about the elderly collapsing of cardiac arrest is quite common, it’s shocking to realize that cardiac arrest can happen to anyone from the moment they are born, no matter what their age. It’s important to be equipped with the knowledge of how to keep their bodies from quickly deteriorating without oxygen through using CPR.

We have seen it countless times: the ambulance, with lights strobing and siren wailing, slithering its way through a congested city street. Apprehensively crawling under a red light at a busy intersection. Riding the brakes as the motorists in its path turn down their radios and check their mirrors, wondering what all the noise is about.

We dutifully pull over and, with a sigh of anxious pity, we always think the same thing: “I’m glad it’s not on its way to see me.”

However, this common thought underlines an important reality. The time it takes for paramedics to arrive on the scene of a cardiac arrest victim can make the stark difference between a life well-lived and a life cut short.

It is for this reason that it is of paramount importance for people outside of the health industry to have a basic understanding of CPR.

Ray Hanvey, an exercise instructor at the Stonestown YMCA in San Francisco, California, knows all too well the benefits of having life-saving education be the rule as opposed to the exception. He collapsed while teaching a class and benefitted greatly from the fact that his peers are required to know how to perform CPR. He was saved by the quick action taken by those around him who had insight into the steps that need to be taken in the face of a health crisis.

While Ray was lucky to have been stricken with a heart attack in the midst of well-trained company, many unfortunate others are not.

Anyone can find themselves in a situation where their own practical knowledge could turn the tide in an emergency. Even a baseline understanding of life-saving or first aid techniques can have an impact when applied to someone whose life may depend on the swift arrival of an ambulance howling impatiently at the rear end of a tractor trailer that has yet to find a suitable spot to pull over.

CPR training, in many cases, can draw the line between hero and bystander.

Check out some local public community CPR classes now!

During my teen years I became a life guard like so many of my peers and, thus, had to be trained in how to respond to emergencies.  If you had asked me then how to perform CPR or give aid I would have laughed about that weekend class I had taken because I did not remember anything. Beyond minor saves and giving out Band-Aids as a lifeguard, I wasn’t using any of the others skills and they faded.

 However, just a couple years later, I was driving home and saw a woman lying on the side of the road.  Her family was listening to the instructions being given over the phone but I could see that the hands were not placed correctly, the correct amount of pressure wasn’t being applied, and the rate of compressions was too slow.  I pulled over and asked the family for permission to help and I instinctively took over.  I checked the heart rate and checked for breathing.  She needed CPR and she needed it to be done correctly….100 compressions every minute… 2 breaths after every 30 compressions…head tilted…hold the nose….all the training flooded back.   Finally an ambulance arrived and the paramedics took over.  She appeared dead to me but I knew I had tried my best and at least I knew how to help.

 The next day at my restaurant job, there was that same family sitting at one of my tables.  We were all surprised.  The coincidence was unbelievable!  I had never even mentioned my job or my name.  They informed me that, while still in critical condition, the lady was alive and recovering.

Someone lived because of a CPR class that I needed for a high-school summer job, a class that did not prove useful at the time yet saved a woman’s life later.

Submitted by Natalie 7.13.2016

Edited by Christina