By Lisa Backus
The Middletown Press
ANSONIA, Conn. — Katie Grant and Paula Rossi were at a Woodland High School Region 16 and Ansonia High School soccer game Sept. 5, watching their sons play when they put their skills as nurses for Hartford HealthCare to good use.
The women saved the life an Ansonia player who went into sudden cardiac arrest twice after being brought off the field.
They were honored last week by In A Heartbeat, a Connecticut nonprofit that raises awareness for sudden cardiac arrest, for their actions.
It was a “surreal” moment, said Grant, who like Rossi had saved lives in her professional role as a nurse. But it made even more dramatic by the fact the field was not adjacent to the school and there was no other staff or hospital equipment nearby to help them.
“It was very, very scary,” said Grant, a Beacon Falls resident. “My kid is on the team, her kid is on the team. It’s not the first time I saved a life, but it was my first time doing it outside of a hospital.”
The game was late in the second half, according to the two women, who met a few years ago because their sons were on the Woodland High School regional team. As they were watching, an Ansonia player went down. It wasn’t that unusual, as players get hurt playing soccer, said Grant, a nurse manager for surgical services at Charlotte Hungerford Hospital.
But what was unusual was that even though he was taken off the field, he went down again and it seemed like the situation was getting “chaotic,” Grant said.
Grant asked Rossi whether she wanted to take a walk over see if they could help.
“The game was continuing and they were off to the side but it seemed like it what was going on was taking forever,” said Rossi, a Prospect resident and nurse supervisor at MidState Medical Center in Meriden. “As we approached, the look on everyone’s face was concerning.”
The teen was breathing rapidly and his pulse was rapid, Rossi said. But then she couldn’t feel a pulse so the two started chest compressions and rescue breathing, working together in sync, the women said.
He regained a pulse, had what appeared to be some seizure activity and then lost a pulse again, and the women again worked together to save his life, they said. “We did get a pulse back, and by that time, an ambulance arrived and took over,” Rossi said. “It was not what we expected; we thought maybe a broken bone, but I’m grateful Katie said. ‘let’s go take a walk.’”
Ansonia High School Athletic Director Tom Brockett also expressed his gratitude that the women were able to help along with school staff.
“We are thankful that our athletic trainer Kaitlyn Regan was able to jump into action and very thankful for the two mothers and for everybody else who came to the aid of a student-athlete that day,” Brockett said Wednesday. The student is not back on the playing field yet but is doing well, he said.
As part of their recognition ceremony, which took place during halftime of a Woodland High School soccer game on Oct. 17 , the school was given a portable automated external defibrillator, according to In a Heartbeat founder Mike Papale. Papale was brought back to life with CPR when he was a teen in 2006.
“It’s amazing what they did,” Papale said. “It goes to show that if we had more people in the community comfortable in doing CPR or using an AED, more lives would be saved. They are truly heroes.”
Grant admits it was “the scaredest I’ve ever been.” In total it took about two minutes from the time they started CPR until the ambulance arrived, she said. “When we explain what happened it sounds like it was super long, but it was only two minutes.”
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