News

Defibrillator comes in handy

By Nancy Barthel
Compass Correspondent

This Christmas will be special for St. Agnes Parish in Green Bay.

Parishioner John Fazer will be there, just as he has been for many Christmases past. But he may not have been without some quick thinking by fellow parishioners - and the foresight the parish had two years earlier to ask: "What would we do if someone collapses here some day?"

That "day" came Nov. 25, the Saturday after Thanksgiving. What happened was ushers, the assembly and the pastor reacted effectively, coolly and calmly.

Just as he does every Saturday, John Fazer went to the 4:15 p.m. Mass. And just like it always is the evening before a Green Bay Packers' home game, Mass was packed. But something was very different that day: John, who wasn't feeling well, collapsed at Communion.

John was seated in Section No. 5, near the organ, said Fr. Richard Getchel, pastor, who was up at the altar and could see the commotion.

Then he heard the alarm go off on the automated external defibrillator (AED) the parish had bought two years ago. The ushers, as they had been trained to do, had reacted quickly, going to where the AED is kept, just outside the sacristy door, and bringing it to the scene.

The portable electronic device diagnoses then treats cardiac arrest by re-establishing an effective heart rhythm through an electric shock to the heart muscle - defribrillation - which uniformly clears the heart's electrical activity so it can resynchronize.

Fr. Getchel said his mind moved quickly. "Should I go down there and do something?" he recalled thinking. "Then I thought, 'No, Dr. [James] Kemmerling is there.'"

Indeed Dr. Kemmerling, a general surgeon with NEW Surgical Associates in Green Bay, was there. He was seated with his family when someone came to get him.

"By the time I got there they already had it hooked up," he said. "I was impressed with the fact that they had the automatic defibrillator going."

In reality, he said, the defibrillator did not give John a shock. The AED is virtually fool-proof, because it verbally communicates a person's condition and only allows a responder to take the correct action. It would be hard for someone to make a mistake, he said.

After the electrode pads are attached to a person, the AED diagnoses heart rhythm and determines if a shock is needed. If the device determines that a shock is necessary, it will charge in preparation to deliver the shock. After the shock is delivered, the device again monitors the heart rhythm of the victim to determine if another shock is needed.

It will not deliver a shock if one is not needed.

"I thought everything was fine," Dr. Kemmerling said. "I think they felt reassured that there was a doctor there."

The AED is nothing to be afraid of, Dr. Kemmerling emphasized. "I guess what I felt good about is they had that defibrillator going ... they were well on their way."

Also in the assembly that day was Jane Polasek, seated a couple pews ahead of John when he collapsed.

"I could hear the defibrillator telling the guys what to do," she said.

When the parish was thinking about buying the $1,700 AED, she donated the money after deciding it was something she could do for the community. Her donation inspired Fr. Getchel to use the memorial money given him two years ago after his own father's death to buy an AED for Holy Family School at the parish.

Seated right across the aisle from all the action was Jenny Hammer and her family. She admits to getting pretty squeemish in situations like this. "It wasn't like some big panic," she was relieved to say. Fr. Getchel kept everything moving along, she said, and John was helped in a discreet way and an ambulance crew took him to the hospital, where he stayed overnight.

After paramedics took John from church, Fr. Getchel led the assembly in reciting a "Hail Mary" for him. Jenny was impressed. "He handled it so beautifully."

Dr. Kemmerling said other parishes in the diocese could learn from St. Agnes. Several parishes have the AEDs and their advantage is simple: They fill the time gap between when 911 is called and the paramedics arrive. These are precious minutes that can mean the difference between life, death - and brain damage, Dr. Kemmerling said.

He shared a few tips for anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation. First, he said, if there is no AED, administer cardiopulmonary rescusitation (CPR) - and if a person has been down for several minutes, studies have shown that CPR should be done before the defibrillator is used.

The AED will not shock a person when the heart has no electrical activity at all. An AED is instead designed to shock a victim with either ventricular fibrillation or pulseless ventricular tachycardia. In each type of cardiac arrhythmia, the heart is beating in an unusual pattern that can be life-threatening if left uncorrected. For every minute a person is in cardiac arrest, the chance of survival decreases by 10%.

"Everybody just kept calm," said Fr. Getchel of that memorable Saturday Mass. He said someone even asked him, "'Did they teach you how to do liturgy when that kind of thing happens?'"

"No," he said.

Fr. Getchel said he's happy that everyone reacted exactly as they had been trained to do when the parish first got the AED.

John, whose wife Jeanette died 10 years ago, is a long-time member of St. Agnes Parish. "He's been to church since he had the incident," Fr. Getchel said. "We even had a Mass for him (for his wife) at 6:45 in the morning and that was Dec. 6."

John is a wonderful member of the parish, he said. "We're very glad he's here with us this Christmas season."