By Keith Gushard
The Meadville Tribune
TOWNVILLE, Pa. — Three members of Townville Volunteer Ambulance Service have been honored for helping one Townville -area resident beat the odds last year.
Shane Taylor, Dan Frantz and Justin Sullivan were quick on the scene to aid a 72-year-old man who went into full cardiac arrest at his daughter’s home around noon back on Oct. 17 last year.
Cardiac arrest happens when the heart suddenly stops beating or beats so fast it actually stops pumping blood. It can be fatal within minutes since the heart isn’t pumping blood to deliver oxygen to a body’s organs.
More than 356,000 people have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in the United States every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ). Of those, up to 80 percent die before reaching a hospital.
All three men were near the ambulance station when Crawford County 911 made a dispatch around noon that day for chest pains at a home a couple of miles north of the borough.
Taylor, a paramedic, and Frantz, an ambulance driver and quick response squad member, met at the hall to get the ambulance while Sullivan followed in his work truck. They were at the scene in about three minutes — and it was someone they all knew.
“We pulled into the driveway and the family came running out, saying, ‘He’s out! He’s out! He’s out!’” Taylor said. “He was on one of the beds, just kind of gasping at that point. We kind of already knew he was in cardiac arrest at that point. We double-checked for a pulse and didn’t find one. Justin and I got him on the floor and started (chest) compressions.”
Meanwhile, Frantz got a bag valve mask to put over the man’s face to resuscitate his breathing.
The man was then hooked up to the ambulance’s portable automated external defibrillator (AED) used to aid in surviving sudden cardiac arrest.
“We ended up delivering one shock,” Taylor continued. “Probably within a minute of that he started breathing on his own. We checked his pulse and a heartbeat back. In about about five minutes, the patient opened his eyes and tried to sit up.”
The patient was taken to the hospital where he was able make a recover and return to a normal life — including being at Townville Old Home Days this summer, an event which honored the trio.
“It’s just rare,” Sullivan said of having a person in full cardiac arrest make a recovery, let alone such a strong one. “A lot of times we don’t see it.”
All three credit their training when handling such a life-threatening emergency.
“Honestly, the training kicks in and you don’t see their faces,” Taylor said of the patient or onlookers such as family. “You don’t put a face to anything until after the fact.”
“You kind of stress out afterward,” Sullivan said.
”You’re so involved with what’s going on you just want to get them going if it’s possible,” Frantz said.
Bill Taylor, Shane’s father and the chief of Townville Volunteer Ambulance Service , agrees.
“I’ve run over 10,000 calls either as a volunteer or paid EMT and I’ve only had five saves,” the elder Taylor said. “This is a big deal.”
Bill Taylor got life-saving recognition plaques, pins and certificates for the three from EMMCO West Regional Emergency Medical Services Council which were presented at Old Home Days.
“We need more community-minded people like them to be involved in rural areas,” Bill McClincy, executive director of EMMCO West, told The Meadville Tribune.
(c)2024 The Meadville Tribune (Meadville, Pa.)
Visit The Meadville Tribune (Meadville, Pa.) at meadvilletribune.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
