March 30, 2006 at 6:47 a.m.
When called; these guys made the difference between life, death
When called; these guys made the difference between life, death
The call came in February 27, about 2 a.m. A 20-year-old female was thought to be having a seizure.
Berry and Beardsley were the first to arrive at the Foxboro address, but they determined Jessica Christenson was in full cardiac arrest.
They shocked her utilizing an External Automatic Defibrillator and her pulse returned. Christenson was transported to Fairview Medical Center in Wyoming, stabilized and taken to Regions Medical Center in St. Paul, where she was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit.
Christenson was recovering well enough last week to be on-hand for the presentation of the honors.
Chief Berry credited the training he and other firefighters had received from North Memorial medical personnel on how to use the AED and recognizing life-threatening symptoms. Berry also acknowledged the donations that have allowed for AED units to be carried in Wyoming emergency response vehicles, and thanked everyone in general who made the purchase of AEDs possible. Berry said the episode certainly would have turned-out differently had the defibrillator not been available.
The Wyoming Fire Department has seen its percentage of medical calls rising over the years. On average over 50 percent of the calls that Wyoming firefighting personnel respond to are medical in nature. The run sheet for the last nine years classifies calls as alarms, structure, crash, gas leak, vehicle fire, standby and grass fire. Medical calls have gone from 32 percent of the run sheet in 1998 to 59 percent in 2002, and 64 percent in 2005.
Already in 2006 the fire department has responded to 14 medical incidents or 41 percent of the total 34 calls since January.
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