Health club employees save man’s life with CPR, defibrillator

Fire officials: Health club employees save man’s life with CPR, defibrillator

Anne Arundel County fire officials are crediting the quick work of two health club employees with saving a Pasadena man’s life Friday morning in Millersville.

The incident took place shortly before 8 a.m. at the Severna Park Raquetball and Fitness Club, located in the 8500 block of Veterans Highway. Fire officials said a 72-year-old man collapsed while playing racquetball. Employees Kevin Davis and Chuck Newby found the man not breathing and without a pulse.Davis began CPR as Newby assisted, fire officials said.

The employees then applied a shock using a Automatic External Defibrillator, or AED, to the man with no response.

Within two minutes of the call, firefighter Lt. Brian Mayers, who was on duty in the area responded to the club. Mayers took over CPR from Davis as a second shock was applied to the man.

Eventually, the man regained a pulse and began breathing and subsequently regained consciousness, fire officials said.

Fire officials said that this is the second life saved by Davis in the past two years. In 2011, he was recognized by the department with its Citizens Exemplary Performance Award for a successful resuscitation of another club patron, fire officials said.

In recent months, firefighters have begun performing 100 compressions a minute while performing CPR, instead of the former standard 30 and two breaths per minute to facilitate blood circulation and oxygen flow. While Maryland will officially adopt the technique beginning July 1, county fire officials lobbied the state to begin change the protocol early.

Fire officials credit the new technique with resuscitating two patients prior to Friday.

Fire officials used the incident to highlight the importance of bystander CPR and defibrillation. Anyone interested in receiving CPR training is encouraged to contact the county fire department at 410-222-8337, or by email at http://www.aacounty.org/Fire/EMS/learnCPR.cfm