Wisconsin man’s life saved by his co-workers

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It was just another day for a 49-year-old Scoutmaster from Chippewa Falls, WI, starting his shift at 11 am. Claude Carpenter has been working at TTM Technologies for three years.

At 12:30 pm Carpenter was experiencing what he thought was heartburn from spicy jambalaya the night before, he was hoping that the knot in his chest would go away, which it did – only to collapse of a heart attack. Now his life lay in the hands of co-workers he hardly knew.

Claude Carpenter with his rescuers.

Three people came to his rescue, Rick Steinmetz was one of them. Steinmetz had trained in CPR, “But it’s been 10 years,” he said. So he called to the front desk to request help from the First Responder team. Tim Black got the text and was about 200 feet from Carpenter. Other than TTM’s First Responder team training, he had trained through the Fire Department.

But training doesn’t mean you still aren’t shocked to see a co-worker you had just met a week before now having a heart attack.

Another TTM First Responder, Howard Ressler, arrived to help, bringing the Automated External Defibrillator (AED) with him.

“The unit told us to shock,” Black said about the AED, which diagnoses what is happening and gives recorded instructions. “After the shock, we started CPR.”

Carpenter came to and was loaded into the ambulance – remembering nothing of the incident. “The next thing I know, I woke up at St. Joseph’s Hospital,” he said. Carpenter has a certificate for completing CPR training. But he never expected to rely on others to know how to do it. “Never in my wildest dreams did I figure I would be the one they would be using it on,” he said.

Carpenter came out of the experience thinking all businesses should have an AED. “These things should be in every business place,” he said of the units.

Ressler said TTM is buying two more AEDs, so the machines can be spaced out throughout the Chippewa Falls plant.

If you want information on incorporating an AED program into your facility or workplace, contact our AED Experts today, or give us a call us at 888.473.1777.

Source, by Rod Stetzer