TURNERS FALLS — One woman’s quick thinking on Easter Sunday could very well be what saved her wife’s life as they waited for paramedics to arrive.
“She wasn’t breathing,” Turners Falls resident Connie Brito said of her wife, Yolanda Correa. “(The dispatcher) told us if she’s not breathing to start CPR, so that’s what we did.”
On April 4, Turners Falls Fire Department responded to a call for an unresponsive woman. As firefighters made their way up the alleyway to the apartment, they heard the sound of someone counting, said Fire Capt. Luke Hartnett.
“The wife of the patient was actually performing CPR,” Hartnett recounted.
Once on scene, paramedics took over and performed basic life support measures, he said, and within 10 to 15 minutes of the original call from dispatch, they were able to get a pulse. Correa was taken to Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield, and was subsequently transported to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield.
According to Hartnett, Correa was home from the hospital within a week.
“With their quick thinking, they 100 percent saved their loved one’s life,” he said. “I was extremely proud of our citizens.”
Earlier this week, Correa and her family visited the first responders at the Montague Public Safety Complex on Turnpike Road to thank them for helping to save her life.
“There have been very few times where I’ve been able to hug a patient at the station after a call, and that’s 100 percent a credit to the family,” Hartnett said. “They’re the heroes in this. We responded as our job, and these people went above and beyond.”
Hartnett said early intervention CPR is always of benefit to a patient in need of it, and yet it’s all too common for people to be too intimidated to perform it, especially on a loved one.
“We do come across bystander CPR, but not very often,” he noted. “This was definitely a stand-out thing.”
According to the American Heart Association, bystander CPR can triple a person’s chance of survival. In fact, with every minute that passes without CPR and defibrillation (an electric shock using a defibrillator to restart normal heart rhythm), a person’s chance of survival decreases by 7 to 10 percent, according to the association.
Hartnett said although the initial reaction is often to remove yourself from the situation and wait for the professionals to arrive, nobody knows a person better than their loved ones.
“Those people who live with them … their loved ones, they’re the people who could provide the best initial care before trained professionals get there,” he said. “In this case, they jumped in and were able to provide the best outcome for the case.”
Brito said she learned CPR several years ago through a company that offered a course at her daughter’s dance school. Her daughter, Chelsea, learned it at Franklin County Technical School, where she is currently a student.
“I was nervous,” said Brito, who started compressions after her daughter called 9-1-1. “But you gotta do what you gotta do. Your instincts just kick in.”
Hartnett said the Turners Falls Fire Department plans to host community, hands-only CPR classes, hopefully within the next six months.
“We work with a company called Community911, and they do a lot of training,” he said. “It’s definitely a skill to know.”
The Turners Falls-based Community911 Training Inc. offers classes that are open to the public, according to the nonprofit’s website, community911training.org. Individuals who are interested in any of the “Heartsaver” classes listed online can sign up, complete the online work, and call to set up a one-on-one skills session with an instructor.
Brito said that if there is one piece of advice to offer someone who might find themselves in a similar situation she found herself in on Easter, it’s “don’t wait.”
“It’s a matter of seconds that can change anything,” she said. “I was nervous; I didn’t want to, but it’s the voice in the back of your head — it’s either life or death, plain and simple.”
And get trained, she added — it could save a life.
Mary Byrne can be reached at mbyrne@recorder.com or 413-930-4429. Twitter: @MaryEByrne