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 Nick, a 15-year-old freshman, collapsed.
“I heard a thud, and he was face-first on the floor,” said Erik Hager, the school’s athletic director, recalling events of last Friday morning. “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 Nick 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, Nick might not have been as lucky. The defibrillator 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.
This 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.”
Neither Illinois nor Missouri has specific rules requiring physical education teachers to be certified in first aid, including the use of defibrillators, authorities said. But both states require any facility that has a defibrillator to also train employees to use them.
Last Friday, Hager and his colleague, Kyla Patton, both of whom are trained in defibrillator use, learned how easy the devices are to use, even in the most tense, frightening circumstances.
After Nick collapsed, Hager and Patton yelled for some students to get help, call 911 and find the school nurse.
“We’re very scared at this point, and we’re ready for the nurse,” Patton remembered. “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.”
The school’s principal, Dennis Works, rushed in and tried to find Nick’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 Nick to St. Louis Children’s Hospital, where he was upgraded to satisfactory condition this week.
School authorities said they give their gym teachers a list of students with any pre-existing health conditions at the beginning of the school year, but Nick’s family did not disclose that he had a heart condition.
The Dilbeck family could not be reached for comment.