Out of the blue: Quick response, AED access plays vital role in saving local man’s life

"We were about 20 minutes into the class and, as I walked past the teacher, I just collapsed," Mike Webb recalled.

"After that, I don't remember anything. Time didn't exist for me for quite a while."

Webb, a retired math teacher, was having a heart attack. Jumping to his aid immediately was a nurse in the class, Barbie Gibbs, RN, who started cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and then did rescue breathing as Scott Givens, MPA, manager of HealthPoint Fitness--Jackson, ran up to help with chest compressions. Fitness team members called 9-1-1. Other employees also raced upstairs to the classroom with an automated external defibrillator (AED), a portable device that analyzes a heart's electrical signals and, if necessary, shocks it back into a normal rhythm.

"If Mike was walking in the park, he wouldn't have made it," Givens said. "We were lucky that we had people trained in CPR in the same room that he was in and had others who knew how to use an AED to keep him alive while emergency crews were responding."

Be Prepared

Scott Givens, manager of HealthPoint Fitness in Jackson, displays an AED -- a small, but life-saving, device.

A survey released by the American Heart Association found that workers in this country are unprepared to handle cardiac emergencies while on the job because they lack training in CPR or didn't know where an AED was located.

Givens wants to change that. He is part of a team of certified HealthPoint Fitness instructors who teach basic CPR in monthly courses around the region, either on site at the fitness centers in Cape Girardeau and Jackson or in businesses, schools, churches and other organizations. Demand for the courses is so high now that additional certified instructors have been added to the team.

"We've already trained hundreds of people in the surrounding communities," he said. "They include not only our own hospital employees, but also school teachers, factory workers, community leaders, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, parents and individuals. We trained the staff at the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau and they used an AED twice the month after they were trained."

Added Givens, "We also need to have more AEDs available in the community. For example, it would be great if every police car had one."

AED grants

Mike and Vicki Webb enjoy kayaking on one of southeast Missouri's many streams.Lyle Whitworth ~ SEHealth

SoutheastHEALTH Ambassadors, an extension of the SoutheastHEALTH Foundation, has raised funds to donate 10 AEDs and CPR kits to local non-profit organizations in Cape Girardeau and the surrounding region.

Webb, who was rushed to Southeast Hospital after he collapsed at HealthPoint Fitness, was diagnosed with an aortic valve that malfunctioned and blocked the blood flow to his heart. Three days after his emergency, he underwent open-heart surgery to transplant a new valve from a pig.

"It was about five or six months before I returned to some fitness classes, but I'm back to exercising again," he said. "My favorite hobby has become kayaking. My wife and I now kayak all over the country. We love it!"

His return to regular classes includes yoga -- perhaps the most beneficial, he said -- as well as weight lifting, pilates and, yes, even cardio kickboxing again.

"I was told that when I had my heart attack in the cardio kickboxing class that the song "Achy Breaky Heart" just happened to be playing," Webb said with a laugh. "Ironic, isn't it? But my heart's not broken anymore."