By Rosalie Westenskow
Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City)
Copyright 2006 The Deseret News Publishing Co.
HIGHLAND, Utah — Gasping for breath, his lips blue and pulse waning, Scott Montrose lay unconscious on a bench in his high school weight room.
The 16-year-old Lone Peak High School student was having a heart attack, but he now represents a minority of cardiac-arrest survivors, thanks to a quick-thinking teacher and timely paramedic team.
Montrose, who has a heart condition called tetralogy of Fallot, has had six open-heart surgeries, but no one expected him to have a heart attack. Luckily for him, Lone Peak teacher Lori Christensen was prepared for the unexpected.
While teaching her health class one day in mid-October, Christensen, a licensed emergency medical technician, received a call from the school’s office. She was asked to go to the school’s weight room to assist a student who had passed out.
Christensen acts as one of the school’s two “first responders” — teachers trained in CPR and other emergency medical response who can start administering aid to a student before paramedics arrive.
In her 10 years at Lone Peak, Christensen said she’s never encountered anything as life-threatening as cardiac arrest and didn’t think the situation was too serious at first.
“I thought he probably just didn’t eat breakfast,” she said.
As soon as Christensen arrived in the weight room, however, she knew she had to act fast.
Noting Montrose’s breathing had slowed to only four times per minute and the blue hue of his skin, Christensen said she told Montrose’s coach to call 911 and then immediately began rescue breathing.
Sending a student to get an oxygen tank and breathing mask from her classroom, she checked Montrose’s pulse and realized it was gone.
At that moment, the Lone Peak Fire Department arrived, and paramedics began assisting Christensen in administering CPR.
Montrose was taken by ambulance to American Fork Hospital and then transported by helicopter to Primary Children’s Medical Center where he stayed for 11 days and underwent surgery for a special type of pacemaker.
Doctors at the hospital originally projected a grim future for Montrose, said his mother, Lisa Montrose.
“When I first arrived at Primary (Children’s Medical Center), the doctors pulled our family into a room and said they weren’t holding out a lot of hope for him,” she said.
The family was informed of three possible outcomes: death, severe disabilities caused by brain damage or the distant third possibility of full recovery.
Two days later, though, Scott began responding, and the doctors explained to his family how miraculous his recovery was.
“The doctors told us, ‘We didn’t want to tell you this, but 99 percent of the time that someone goes into cardiac arrest outside of a hospital situation, they die,”’ Lisa Montrose said.
However, she said the doctors were acting on the assumption Scott had gone for 10 minutes without oxygen — a normal scenario for cardiac arrest victims. What doctors didn’t know was Christensen had started rescue breathing before medical personnel arrived.
Lone Peak Fire Chief Craig Carlisle said Christensen, who received a plaque from Alpine School District for her service, played a vital role in saving the teen’s life.
“I attribute Mrs. Christensen with actually saving his life by her fast action starting rescue breathing,” Carlisle said.