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SOOKE RULES Editorial
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Wednesday, August 15, 2012
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Heroes in our midst save man’s life Three people provided the vital link which helped man survive heart attack Brittany Lee Sooke News Mirror
When Bobbie-jo Peterson was driving home along Sooke Road last July, she noticed a pair of legs sticking out from behind a suitcase by a bus stop near Drennan Street. Seeing the man’s feet on the ground, Peterson thought, someone must be in trouble. “I instinctively pulled over,” she said, adding that there was already a man there on the phone, calling for help. “I was worried he wasn’t breathing,” Peterson said, adding that the collapsed man’s face was blue. “I thought he was dead or dying.” Peterson, who was with her then 14-year-old son, began doing chest compressions on the collapsed man, who was visiting from Calgary and said to be in his 50s. “At first, I wasn’t really sure what to do but then, I guess, instinct came in,” Peterson said. Having two sons with epilepsy, Peterson knows CPR, but she hadn’t had to use her skills for about 15 years. In what seemed like no time at all, Gerry Boivin, a Langford resident with a military background, came to Peterson’s aide. The two continued to resuscitate the man, using both compression and mouthto-mouth techniques. “My focus was on what I
Brittany Lee photo
Front from left to right, Gerry Boivin of Langford, Christina Klein of the Sooke RCMP and Bobbie-jo Peterson of Sooke were presented with Vital Link Awards from Michael McGregor, left, and Chris Daoust (back row) from the Sooke detachment of the B.C. Ambulance Service for helping save a Calgary man’s life last July. was doing,” Peterson said. “I just wanted this guy to live.” Christina Klein, a newly trained officer with the Sooke RCMP, soon joined them. For the next 10 minutes, the three continued giving the man CPR while waiting for paramedics to arrive. “I’m so glad that we could keep this man alive with CPR while the ambulance was on its way,” Klein said in a statement.
Sooke RCMP, fire, and paramedics arrived to the call. Chris Daoust, paramedic with the Sooke B.C. Ambulance Service, began applying shocks to the collapsed man. After the second shock, a pulse was felt, Daoust said. “It’s because these people stopped to help this man,” Daoust said of Peterson, Boivin, and Klein on Wednesday.
“They actually took the time out to stop and see what was going on and called for help and then actually tried to help the person.” Daoust nominated the three citizens for the BCAS’s Vital Link Award, which honours people’s efforts in using CPR to save a life, acting as the vital link in increasing a patient’s survival rate before an ambulance arrives. The trio received their
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award in a recognition ceremony last Wednesday (Aug. 8) at the Sooke ambulance station. Annually, about 50 B.C. residents receive the award. Patients suffering from cardiac arrest usually have a negative outcome even after receiving medical help from on-scene paramedics, according to Daoust. “The early CPR keeps blood flow going to the
brain, to the heart, so it minimizes the amount of damage and increases the potential for the patient to make a full recovery, which is, I think, the outcome that everyone wants,” he said. It takes courage for witnesses or bystanders to stop and help, Michael McGregor, acting superintendent of the Sooke BCAS, said. “It’s not all the time people stop by (and help), it takes a lot of courage for people to stop by, and that’s why we’re out here today awarding these people with the Vital Link Award,” McGregor said. “Their unselfish act saved this man’s life.” The man recovered at the Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria before being flown to Calgary, where he was rehabilitated. Last McGregor had heard, the man was in good health and did not suffer any brain damage. “The early CPR kept his brain healthy and the rest of him healthy,” McGregor said. When Peterson was notified, later that afternoon on July 7, 2011, that the Calgary man would be OK, she was elated. “I was just shocked and really happy.” However, being awarded for her help feels unnecessary, Peterson said. “I did what I hope another citizen would do for me,” she said. “I’m just really grateful to (everyone involved), that they were there for support and their quick response.”
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