AEDs for Schools

Every Second Counts: Teen saved by friends and publicly accessible outdoor AED

Summer 2022

It started off as a normal evening for Nate, Toby, Mason, and Michael (Mikey). Meeting up to play basketball on their high school outdoor courts, they couldn’t know how lucky they were to choose that location. Mikey throws a pass but it’s way offside, the boys start to joke around but suddenly 16-year-old Mikey collapses. The boys gather around Mikey on the ground. To their shock, Mikey is not responding. Having recently taken CPR in their PE class the boys knew they needed to call 911 and act fast.

Toby calls 911 and the operator immediately identifies that Mikey has suffered a Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) and CPR is needed. Mason starts compressions, knowing he needs to push hard and fast. The operator then asks Toby to look around, is there an AED nearby? …

Let’s back up to 2016. Another Michael – Mike Brindley, sadly lost his life after suffering a cardiac arrest while playing basketball at a summer camp. After this tragic loss, his parents, Kristy and Bob Brindley founded the Just1Mike Foundation to honour their son. Through this foundation their mission is to educate the public about SCA and help prevent more deaths by placing AEDs in public spaces. The foundation placed an outdoor SaveStation Tower which holds an AED on the Sonoma Valley High School basketball courts in the summer of 2021…

Toby and Nate look around and spot a tower just a few yards away, with a glowing heart. Nate runs to the SaveStation Tower for the AED and brings it back to Mikey. They work together to get the AED on Mikey. The AED reads Mikey’s status and delivers a life-saving shock, then another. EMS arrives and takes over the scene. Sonoma Valley Fire District EMS Battalion Chief, Brian Cyr describes their actions that day:

“…Having them start CPR that quick is the most important thing that happened, and when I first got ahold of them, I wanted to really reiterate that to them, how important that was. I’ve been doing this a long time and I have 3 CPR saves in my career, and all of them are based on bystander CPR and AED usage. Without starting CPR immediately, brain death starts within 4-6 minutes… we got there in less than 10, but without starting CPR the chance of surviving drastically drops. The ability to get to an AED and use it that quick … these guys saved his life.’

Despite the dire statistics of SCA survival rates, Mikey made a full recovery! He joined the Brindley’s (Just1Mike Foundation), his friends and family, Action First Aid and SaveStation representatives at a celebration ceremony to introduce even more of the community to this lifesaving publicly accessible AED and to congratulate the teens on an amazing save.