Guardsmen Use Defibrillator to Save a Life at Anderson Readiness Center

"It was like a miracle. I'd never seen it before…he'd come back." - Staff Sergeant Richard Powell, Army medic

Richard Powell helped two fellow soldiers save a man's life today with the automated external defibrillator.

(SALEM, Ore.) - Oregon Guard Spokesman Major Michael S. Braibish, says it was a case of being in the worst of conditions, but in the right place at the right time.

A man, apparently suffering a heart attack, collapsed to the floor at the Anderson Readiness Center in Salem today just before noon, and soldiers of the Oregon Army National Guard were able to utilize a defibrillator and save his life.

Captain Daryl Ottoway, an Occupational Health Nurse for the Guard, watched the man fall, and he immediately sprang into action.

To the man's good fortune, he was outside the soldier's Medical Command.

Suspecting a heart attack, Ottoway called out to fellow workers to bring an automated external defibrillator – or AED – as he checked for breathing and a pulse.

"The AED was on the wall outside my office," said Staff Sergeant Richard Powell, a trained and experienced Army medic. He grabbed the gear and rushed to the scene.

Powell had just returned on February 5th from a refresher course that made his training with the AED current.

Ottoway had already begun CPR when Powell and another soldier arrived at his side with the equipment – the AED and a medical kit with an oxygen tank.

Sergeant 1st Class Bill Lowe, the health systems manager for the ORARNG ripped the man's shirt open as Powell prepared the AED.

Several other soldiers who heard the commotion called 9-1-1.

Ottoway confirmed the man had stopped breathing, so the team followed the instructions on the AED and shocked him to restart his heart. The AED analyzed the victim, and Ottoway noted the man started breathing shallowly.

Ottoway continued to monitor the patient as Lowe and Powell set up an oxygen bottle taken from the medical kit.

Powell noted that preparation for a worst-case situation helped the soldiers deal with what could otherwise have been a deadly situation.

"We had the right equipment at right time," said Powell. "There are lots of nice things to have, but for that man at that time the AED is what he needed to save his life."

Powell said Army medical technicians are required to have a high degree of training that includes use of an AED.

As the three soldiers tended to their patient, Captain Sharel Paradis and 1st Sergeant Donna Adams turned their attention to the man's wife who had observed everything.

She was distraught, and Paradis and Adams assured her the other soldiers would take care of her husband.

When firefighters arrived Ottaway, Lowe, and Powell transferred responsibility for the patient to them, but as they did so the man stopped breathing again.

Ottoway alerted the firefighters who administered another shock. The man started breathing again, and with the oxygen he began to become more coherent and responsive. Firefighters then put the man on a stretcher and transported him to Salem Hospital.

"In my 35 years of doing this I've never had anyone whose heart and breathing have stopped live," said Powell. "It was like a miracle. I'd never seen it before…he'd come back."

Meanwhile, Adams helped the man's wife call family and friends to update them.