By Leigh Coleman
City Editor Kate Magandy contributed to this report
The Sun Herald
Copyright 2007 The Sun Herald
BILOXI, Miss. — Donna DiSalvo took an American Medical Response CPR class last month, and days later used those skills to save her granddaughter.
On June 23, DiSalvo was at home with her 2-year-old granddaughter, Lauren, enjoying a day together. Lauren was eating her snack and put too many crackers in her mouth.
The child started choking.
Using the skills she learned in her training class, DiSalvo applied the Heimlich maneuver so Lauren could breathe.
“Those crackers did not just come out of her mouth, they flew out,” DiSalvo said. “I kept my cool until after Lauren was safe. The training really works.”
DiSalvo said Lauren had choked one time before when the family was eating dinner. Her husband, Butch, a retired Gulfport police officer, was there and helped the child then.
“If I had been by myself, I would have lost my granddaughter,” she said. “My husband told me then that I should take the CPR course.”
DiSalvo, a Keesler Federal Credit Union employee, was frustrated a few weeks later when she could not help someone else in need.
She was driving home one day when she saw an AMR mechanic slumped over in his vehicle. She called 911 and stopped to try to help Woody Weaver, who had pulled off Lorraine-Cowan Road in Gulfport. Medics said Weaver had suffered a heart attack and was dead.
“I was distraught that I couldn’t do more to help him that day,” she said. “I was angry and I blamed myself for a while because I was going to take CPR classes before this happened.”
Weaver’s death and her inability to help him prompted DiSalvo to call AMR.
“Another thing... is that Mr. Weaver’s sister and sister-in-law work at Keesler Federal Credit Union with me,” she said. “I just felt that if I’d only known what to do, I could have saved him.”
DiSalvo worked with AMR, the ambulance service for Harrison and Hancock counties, to organize three CPR classes for her co-workers at Keesler Federal Credit Union. Nearly 25 credit union employees took the training course last month.
According to the American Heart Association, a bystander who performs CPR effectively after cardiac arrest can double a patient’s chance of survival.
AMR representatives say they train several hundred South Mississippians every year and encourage everyone to take a CPR course to learn the signs and symptoms of a stroke and heart attack.
“The thought of Lauren not breathing was overwhelming,” DiSalvo said. “Afterward, I hugged her and cried for the longest time. Lauren asked me, ‘Are you OK, Nana?’ And we both settled down.”