HAVRE DE GRACE, Md. — The sign outside the Susquehanna Hose Company welcomed a woman we will only refer to as ‘Allison’ who was all smiles just a week after her brush with death.
“Allison said she had absolutely no idea,” Paramedic Rachel Obitz told us, “She said she didn’t remember anything leading up to it.”
Allison was attending an event at the Bulle Rock Residents Club on May 29th when she went into cardiac arrest.
First responders receive thanks from cardiac arrest patient
Captain Chad Myers arrived first on the scene where a pair of nurses had started CPR.
“Go inside and I notice a lady that was laying on the floor with two ladies surrounding her,” recounted Myer, “It looks like they’d performed everything that you’re trained to do.”
Next up on the scene, EMS Danielle Wolf and Kelly Risper with Ambulance 55, part of a paid EMS service, which in its first 18 months, had already saved three others from the same complex under similar circumstances.
“Our chief first had worked with the county,” said Myers, “He realized with the amount of EMS calls that had been coming and basically a volunteer system that was struggling to keep up all the medical calls and getting a county-paid unit into our firehouses was very important to the public.”
Paramedic Obitz would arrive on Medic 53 to provide advanced life support during transport completing the rescue for Allison, who had been clinically dead.
Allison is one of the lucky ones.
It’s estimated only 15 percent or three out of every 20 patients whose hearts have stopped will actually be revived.
A week later, Allison and her family sought out the first responders at the firehouse for a celebratory reunion.
“She hugged all of us and said, ‘Thank you so much’ for saving her life,” said Obitz, “She said that she doesn’t remember what happened so we were able to kind of fill in the details. I know that her husband came up to us and said, ‘I don’t know how to… how do you thank somebody for saving your family member’s life?’”
