Copyright 2006 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
By GEORGINA GUSTIN
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
After Nick Dilbeck finished a game of flag football in the gym of the New Athens High School, he changed his clothes, got a drink of water and walked over to the bleachers to join his friends. Suddenly, he collapsed.
“I heard a thud, and he was face-first on the floor,” said Erik Hager, the school’s athletic director, recalling events of the morning of March 24. “My first thought was he was having a seizure, but he was still, and he was gasping for air every 30 seconds or so.”
Moments later, Hager was shocking Dilbeck back to life with an automated external defibrillator, or AED.
“The thing I remember most is when it said, ‘No pulse detected, administer first shock,’” Hager said, adding, “Thank goodness it was there.”
Two years ago, Dilbeck might not have been as lucky. The defibrillator that brought back his pulse was placed in the school in the fall of 2004.
Schools across Illinois and Missouri have chosen to buy defibrillators in the past few years as research has underscored their lifesaving potential.
In the Metro East area, at least 40 schools have bought the devices and trained employees to use them. Missouri school officials say many schools have the devices as well, though the number is elusive because schools don’t always register them with emergency authorities.
The number of schools with defibrillators will soon rise. In July, an Illinois law requiring defibrillators in physical fitness facilities, including school gyms, will take effect. In Missouri, a bill is pending in the Legislature that would require the devices in all schools.
“The reality is, and the data suggests, that a lot of children have died in Missouri because of heart conditions,” said Rep. Bryan Pratt, R-Blue Springs, the bill’s sponsor. “There’s a defibrillator just outside the House chambers. If it’s important enough for us, it’s important enough for Missouri’s kids.”
But both states require any facility that has a defibrillator to train employees to use them.
At New Athens High School, Hager and his colleague, Kyla Patton, are trained in defibrillator use.
After Dilbeck collapsed, Hager and Patton yelled for students to get help, call 911 and find the school nurse.
“Then a student ran back and said the nurse wasn’t there. At that point, Erik and I looked at each other, and we knew we had to do something, take control.”
Principal Dennis Works rushed in and tried to find Dilbeck’s pulse. There was none. The teachers grabbed a defibrillator from the hallway outside the gym, opened the device and read the directions.
“It tells you what to do, step by step,” Patton said.
Patton and Works watched anxiously as Hager administered one shock, then another.
“I was just terrified,” Patton said. “It was just such a blessing when the machine said it felt a pulse — at least we (had) a heartbeat.”
An ambulance took Dilbeck, 15, to St. Louis Children’s Hospital, where he was upgraded to satisfactory condition last week.
School authorities say that they give their gym teachers a list of students with any pre-existing health conditions at the beginning of the school year but that Dilbeck’s family did not disclose that he had a heart condition.
The Dilbeck family could not be reached for comment.
In Illinois, students are required to have a physical in kindergarten or first grade, one in fifth grade and one in ninth. Dilbeck had the required physical.
In Missouri, requirements for physicals are left up to the school district.