By JOSEPH KELLARD
It all started when a motorist crashed into a utility pole on Brower Avenue, just outside the north wing of Oceanside High School. A student and two faculty members trained in paramedic procedures used a device provided by the school district that probably saved the man's life.
The motorist, a 63-year-old from Long Beach, apparently suffered a heart attack when he hit the pole at about 2:05 p.m. on Wednesday, May 7, police reported. As the accident happened, senior Matt Martin was sitting in the OHS nurse's office with a headache when a custodian ran in to tell the nurse, Arlene Parmelle, about the accident.
Martin, 18, who only two weeks earlier had become a firefighter with the Oceanside Fire Department, took an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) from a box mounted on a wall outside the office and dashed through the lobby and north wing to the victim outside in his car. Martin was met at the scene by John Massina, a phys. ed. teacher, and the two men, both trained in CPR and the use of a AED -- a device that analyzes a person's heart rhythm and administers electric shock through the chest wall to the heart -- worked on the motorist.
"The man in the car was pretty much dead," Martin said of the man's condition at the scene. "I grabbed him underneath his legs and arms and pulled him out and laid him on the ground. Mr. Martin was getting the defibrillator ready. I opened up his airway to check if he was breathing, but he wasn't. I was carrying around a pocket mask from the fire department, gave him two breaths and checked his pulse. There was none. Mrs. Parmelle started CPR, and I was doing breathing. After about two sets of breathing and compression, we shocked him twice."
Emergency medical workers from both Nassau County and the Oceanside F.D. arrived and assisted as Massina performed compressions on the victim, a duty that, when he tired, Martin took over.
"When I was doing compressions and waiting to give him breaths, I looked down at his eyes and they were bloodshot and rolling back in his head," Martin recalled. "I wasn't scared at that point, but afterwards, when the ambulance took him away, it scared me."
Before Nassau County transferred him to South Nassau Communities Hospital, the motorist had a pulse and was breathing, Martin said. "It started hitting me then that I actually saved a guy's life," Martin explained. "Just knowing we brought him back and saved his life is a great joy. That overrides the drama."
While the victim sustained no injuries in the crash, he suffered cardiac and respiratory arrest and remains in critical condition at South Nassau Community Hospital, Dt. Sgt. John Azzata of the Fourth Precinct told the Herald last Friday.
"From what the medical personnel at the hospital tell us, they can't determine whether the heart attack occurred prior to or after the auto accident," Azzata added.
The AED Martin and Massina used is one of about 17 such devices that the school district obtained thanks to the efforts of Athletic Director Dave Zawatson. The estimated cost of the AEDs and the program to implement them was about $45,000. Through a grant provided by Senator Dean Skelos and private donations from about 10 sources in the Oceanside community, the district was able to purchase the devices and install them at the start of this school year.
Faculty, including principals, teachers, phys. ed. teachers, nurses and custodians, were trained in the use of AEDs, which are stored in alarmed cabinets strategically placed in school hallways, available for use 24 hours a day.
"Thanks to Senator Skelos's grant and the various contributions," said Superintendent Dr. Herb Brown, "we apparently saved a life this week."
