Two quick-thinking and remarkably composed phys. ed. coaches at a middle school outside Dallas are being credited with saving a 12-year-old girl’s life last month. The girl reportedly collapsed in a school hallway as the result of a previously undetected heard condition. The educators, Kristen Goodgion and Brent Reese, tried CPR and then successfully used an automatic external defibrillator to revive her heart. “It [the AED] told us to shock, and we both looked at each other in shock, like, ‘This is really what we need to do right now?’” Goodgion recalled. Evidently it was: Medical authorities say that if the teachers had delayed by just 30 seconds the girl would have had only a 3 percent chance of survival.
A key take-away: Goodgion and Reese credit the mandatory AED training they receive under Texas law for giving them the know-how to proceed in the situation. “That literally is what we fell back on,” Goodgion said. “It kept us calm; we had something to (fall) back on, to know what to do.”