Centre Daily Times: Emergency CPR responders honored for saving lives

June 12, 2014–By Chip Minemyer:

Elizabeth Rupert said she stepped around a corner Jan. 12 in The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel and  encountered a man unconscious on the floor.

“You always think when you come across a situation like that, you will freak out,” the banquet server said.

But she didn’t panic.

“It was weird,” she said. “I was calm.”

And she put her CPR training to work.

Along with Penn Stater General Manager Judy Karaky, executive housekeeper Kerry Kassab and university police officer Hugo Triveri, Rupert helped save the man’s life.

The four were among 23 recognized Wednesday by the Centre County Chapter of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association during a ceremony at the Centre LifeLink station in College Township.

In honoring individuals for their life-saving efforts, the program also served to spotlight the need for more people to get trained to help when an emergency occurs, said Kent Knable, EMS chief at Centre LifeLink.

“It’s great to have a chance to give them kudos, and thank them for being willing to get involved,” Knable said. “Maybe somebody else will hear about this and will think, ‘I can do that, too.’ ”

Centre LifeLink’s Lauren Shurgalla and Eliza Shaw were recognized for organizing and conducting hands-only CPR training for nearly 10,000 people over a five-month period.

“If we can get more people involved in CPR, that’s how we’ll save more lives,” Knable said.

On that winter day at the Penn Stater, conference staff members jumped in when they saw a need, he said.

“I checked his pulse and he had no pulse, so we started with chest compressions,” said Rupert, who said she learned CPR as part of her training to become a physical therapist.

Knable said emergency responders love showing up at an incident to find other trained people already helping a patient — but that doesn’t happen often enough.

“That’s something we need to change,” he said. “You have to get the blood circulating and the oxygen circulating or the organs and the brain will begin to shut down. That could be the difference between life and death.”

Those recognized Wednesday by the Centre County Chapter of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association during a ceremony at the Centre LifeLink station in College Township:

•  Penns Valley EMS crew members Derek Hoover, Angie Poorman, Butch Sasserman, Larry Potter, Laura Snook, Cindy Ross, Adam Ross (Company 7) and Bill Meyers (Medic 24); for saving the life of a woman who suffered cardiac arrest May 22 after leaving Burkholder’s Country Market in Spring Mills and who drove to the EMS station on state Route 45.

•  Centre LifeLink EMS crew members David Jones, Chris Kilburn and Thomas Bedard, and State College police officers Jason Pieniazek and Amanda Estep, and bystanders Kris Keeler and Adam Burkholder; for treating a man who suffered cardiac arrest May 3 at the All-American Rathskeller in State College. Bystanders administered CPR before EMS and police arrived; an AED shock was administered.

•  The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel staff members Judy Karaky, Kerry Kassab and Elizabeth Rupert and Penn State Officer Hugo Triveri; for administering CPR for a man found unconscious Jan. 12 at the facility.

•  Penn State Detective Adam Rawding, Lt. Jason Zajac, and officers Jeffrey Jones and Hugo Triveri; for performing CPR on an individual found unresponsive in a car at a Penn State football game Nov. 23 at Beaver Stadium; one AED shock was also administered; the patient had a return of pulse and was taken to the emergency department at Mount Nittany Medical Center, but died about a week later.

•  Lauren Shurgalla and Eliza Shaw, of Centre LifeLink, who organized and conducted hands-only CPR training for nearly 10,000 people over a five-month period.

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