Copyright 2006 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
By TIM BRYANT
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
WENTZVILLE, Mo. — Nurse Janet Mueller was in her office at Wentzville South Middle School when a coach rushed in to tell her a seventh-grade boy had collapsed in physical education class and was unconscious on the gymnasium floor.
The boy, Billy Terbrock, and his classmates had just run a couple of laps around the gym and were starting calisthenics when he passed out. Mueller rushed to the boy, who had no pulse.
Mueller began cardiopulmonary resuscitation. She has enough CPR training that she has been teaching the procedure for years.
“When I had to do it, I didn’t have to think about it all,” she said.
Paramedics arrived about 10 minutes later and used an automatic external defibrillator to try to restart Billy’s heart. The effort failed.
“That was the worst moment for me,” Mueller said. “That’s when I thought, ‘This is really bad.’”
She resumed performing CPR, and about a minute later Billy responded. Within two days of his collapse on Sept. 26, he was watching movies in his hospital room. Nine days after arriving by helicopter, Billy was well enough to leave St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
Today, he is back at school and active as ever. He attends South Middle with siblings Allison, Briana and Nicholas, quadruplets born Feb. 20, 1992. Billy, the smallest of the four, has a condition known as aortic stenosis, an abnormality that restricts blood flow.
Mueller, whose 23-year nursing career includes work at Children’s pediatric intensive care unit, recently received a Red Cross award for saving Billy. The St. Louis Area Chapter of the American Red Cross gave Mueller one of its Lifesaver Awards. She said that although Billy was the first person on whom she’d performed emergency CPR, her years of training paid off.
“My credit goes to God and the Red Cross,” she said.
Billy’s mother, Dee Dee Terbrock, praised Mueller for her quick action.
“If she didn’t have that (CPR) experience, he probably wouldn’t be here,” Terbrock said. “I look at it as a really big deal because not too many people could have done it for so long.” Billy may eventually face heart valve replacement surgery, his mother said. She added that he remembered nothing of his ordeal.
“Probably what ticks him off the most is that he doesn’t remember the helicopter ride,” Terbrock said.
Mueller said she and Billy were fast friends.
“He comes to see me at least twice a week now just to say ‘Hi,’” Mueller said. “He’s so adorable. He is absolutely wonderful.”