We heard last week from a friend at Cook Children’s Hospital in Frisco, Texas, with the best news possible: Two teachers at a Maus Middle School using an automated external defibrillator (AED) had saved the life of a 12-year-old girl who had collapsed from sudden cardiac arrest.
According to reports on nbcdfw.com and myfoxdfw.com, seventh-grader Kylee Shea collapsed on her way to class. Students called teachers, who began CPR and got the school’s Powerheart AED from a nearby hallway. Teachers Brent Reese and Kristen Goodgion attached the AED, which diagnosed a shockable condition and administered a shock. By the time paramedics arrived, Kylee was alert and talking. One of the school’s hallway video cameras recorded the entire rescue.
Kylee was airlifted to the hospital, where doctors said that the timely use of the AED had saved her life.
“If it wasn’t for this machine and what they did, our daughter still may be with us today, but she wouldn’t be the Kylee we know,” Kylee’s dad, Mike Shea, told the local NBC news station.
Kylee, who had successful surgery to implant a heart pacemaker, was able to return to school this week. She appeared, along with her family and her teachers, on The Today Show to describe the rescue and talk about the importance of AEDs in schools.
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October 11th, 2011 at 8:57 pm
While this report was great, Matt Lauer did mention the shock factor the teachers had in pressing the go button to shock Kylee. The Powerheart AED will not shock if there is a heartbeat detected and Matt Lauer insinuated that shocking someone with a heartbeat could kill them. I know from training in CPR classes as well as instruction with our own AED’s at my workplace that the button phobia fear should not be based on “what if the patient has a heartbeat, will I kill them?” The AED training teaches the AED will not shock unless a heartbeat is not detected, i.e. a shockable condition.
I would recommend to the school district to upgrade their AED’s to the non-button shock units.