Good Samaritans

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Beatrice Alvarez

In a recent class, one of my returning students, Beatrice Alvarez, quietly began sharing her story with her classmate while they were on the floor practicing CPR. I over heard what sounded like a rescue story and interrupted Beatrice so she could tell the whole class her story. Beatrice said, “Just last week, I was at the drug store standing in line and a young woman in her 30’s collapsed right in front of me.” Beatrice looked at Justin and said, “I remembered what you told me from the last class, the check offs for doing CPR.” Beatrice recited, “unresponsive and not breathing normally, start CPR, so I just started.” The young woman had food in her mouth and as Beatrice cradled the woman to turn her over, she scoped the food out, and then she laid the woman on the ground and began compressions. After just a few compressions, the woman regained consciousness. Beatrice was truly a hero in this rescue, as she said everyone stood around looking at her and the woman and no one did anything. When the woman collapsed, after checking responsiveness, she told the store manager to call 911. Thanks to the quick actions of Beatrice and being able to recall her previous training, she was able to save this woman.

Paul Chiment

Paul Chiment is a local High School Math teacher that also serves as an Assistant Coach to the high school girls’ soccer team. On December 4, 2012, the girls were doing a warm up lap and a 16 year old female student collapsed. It ended up that the girl had suffered from CPVT which had been undetected at the time. Paul Chiment did the initial assessment, gave rescue breathes and determined that CPR was needed. He began CPR and instructed another coach to retrieve the school’s AED. Paul, another coach and a dad of another one of the girls continued to perform CPR until Professional Rescuers arrived. They worked frantically continuing to take turns doing CPR on the girl. Just prior to the arrival of the Fire Department, the girl began to moan and breathe. The quick actions of Paul Chiment and the other lay responders helped to save the girl’s life.

Paul Chiment had been trained many times in the past on CPR but it was only in August of 2012 that he learned how and when to use an AED. The School purchased the AED after the Staff CPR/AED training in August 2012. Paul even took it upon himself to speak about the use of an AED at a school assembly that was held in October of 2012, where he taught the students to recognize when to use an AED and to know where to find their AED if it ever became necessary to use it. He had no idea that in as little as two months, his school community would use their new AED awareness to save a student's life!