When his heart ceases to beat, he collapsed at a round dance at the Indian and Metis Friendship Centre Wednesday night but revived by strangers.
Tim Yee, manager of the anti-homelessness program at the downtown community centre and Danielle Borix, a caseworker in the program were volunteering at the yearly feast and round dance honoring youth.
Unforeseen incident
At around 11:30 PM, they were called to help and took over from at least 2 people who were participating in the dance and who first stepped in when an unidentified 65-year old man collapsed to the floor.
The first two had already determined that the man had no heartbeat. One was already delivering chest compressions when Yee came into the gymnasium from the outer lounge and another person was calling for emergency assistance.
According to Borix, there were around 250 people at the event and the man’s daughter was crying and desperate for someone to help him. She remembers feeling unusually calm as she knelt beside the man and started mouth-to-mouth breathing while Yee performed the chest compressions.
An unidentified woman brought the automated external defibrillator (AED) that Yee brought and applied the adhesive pads to the chest of the man. On the device which monitors the heart, it prompted “shock recommended”. They followed the instructions and performed another round of CPR.
Without delay
Yee and Borix performed CPR for 6-8 minutes. In a short while, police, firefighters and paramedics arrived and transported the man to the hospital.
The data from the AED revealed that the man had cardiac arrest and did not have a heartbeat. Generally, he died for 2 minutes. Borix was grateful she had training and encourages others to undergo first aid and CPR training.
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LEARN MORE
Learn how to help by enrolling in a class on CPR and AED and for more information, check out these sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiopulmonary_resuscitation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_external_defibrillator
https://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-a-Defibrillator.aspx