Sudden death brings new lease on life
By Jon Brines, Special to The Placer Herald

When Rocklin resident Mark Storace woke up in the hospital, he had no idea what happened to him.

His wife told him the story of how he died. She happened to be home with him when his heart stopped.

“I hear this big thud,” Cyndi Storace explained. “And it was a really weird feeling I got that this wasn’t right. I went running into the exercise room and he was face down on the treadmill.”

She immediately called 911 and summoned help; firefighters stationed at Rocklin Fire Station No.3; just a mile away.

“His face was blue,” Captain Rick Holmes remembers. “When we got there he looked like a crumpled mess, in a fetal position, against the wall with his face into the treadmill.”

“I kept thinking, ‘no this isn’t happening,’” Cyndi said. “We have too much more to do with our lives. At that point, I put all of my faith into the fire department.”

According to the American Heart Association, nationwide more than 95 percent of sudden cardiac arrest victims die before reaching a hospital, resulting in approximately 250,000 deaths each year, some with no heart problems.

The firefighters performed CPR on Mark and shocked his heart nearly three times to get him to the hospital alive.

“We don’t know the end result of the call,” said fellow firefighter engineer Chad Vert. “We could save them and never even know. I think we learn how to cope with that. I did what I could in my realm and I have to be happy about that. Otherwise we wouldn’t sleep at night.”

That was Aug. 7, 2007, and after weeks in the hospital through rehabilitation and recovery Mark had a new lease on life.

“The first thing they usually ask me is ‘did you see a white light,’” said Mark. “Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t, but I don’t remember.”

Indeed he said it was more of a tally light, giving him purpose.

“You know the saying ‘God is not done with you.’ There is something else I need to be doing.”

Tuesday night in front of the Rocklin City Council, Mark brought everyone that saved his life together to say thank you with a life-saving award of recognition.

From his wife that discovered him and made the call, to the Rocklin dispatcher Pam Henley who sent firefighters Holmes, Vert and Alton Tate to revive him, he calls them the chain of survival.

Holmes explains, when the heart stops, victims have between four and six minutes to get oxygen to the brain.

“The fact that we were two to three minutes away from his house was a blessing. He’s standing here as proof of why we have to have better response times,” Holmes said.

Fellow firefighter Tate is gratified, but humble.

“We train all the time for this stuff. We make sure we’re on top of this skill. Whatever the outcome, hopefully it’s a good one. If it’s not, we knew we did what we were supposed to do,” Tate said.

“I owe them everything,” Mark’s wife told them. “Thank you, very much, for saving my husband.”

Thanking his lifesavers is the first step on Mark’s new mission in life.

“I feel really good doing it,” he said. “Talking to people about the chain of survival, about how people can get involved. I feel a sense of duty.”

He has now started a chapter of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association in Sacramento to get the word out about CPR, Sudden Cardiac Arrest and Automatic External Defibrillators.

“If there is an available AED, use it. At minimum, it will tell you don’t have to use it. Once you put the pads on, it will tell you whether or not the person needs a shock. It will tell you to keep doing CPR,” Mark said.

Mark is now working with Rocklin, Roseville and Auburn police departments to get AEDs in all of the patrol cars, just in case they need one as first responders.

“We know the lord had a hand,” Cyndi said. “He knows that Mark has a lot more to do. It wasn’t his time.”

By Brian Quinn
The Evening Tribune
Hornell, NY

Sat Sep 27, 2008, 09:28 PM EDT

Prattsburgh, N.Y. -
The quick response by a sheriff’s deputy and ambulance staff helped save a man’s life Saturday, sheriff’s office officials said.
When the call came in at 7:31 a.m. that Rodney Bulkley, no age or address reported, went into cardiac arrest and was unresponsive, Deputy Erin Boyle responded to Air Flo, 40 S. Main St. She found Bulkley lying on the cement floor face up with no pulse. Boyle applied the automatic external defibrillator (AED), which instructed her to administer a shock.
The next instructions were to continue cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) at which point a Prattsburgh ambulance arrived. Bulkley was placed in the back of the ambulance and ALS Rural Metro took over his care. He was then taken to Corning Hospital, deputies reported. No additional information on his condition was available.
Boyle said she was simply in the right place at the right time, emphasizing the combined effort by all those involved. She said she made use of the training that all deputies receive.
“When something like that happens you fall back on your training,” Boyle said. “I’m a certified first responder and I’ve been a lifeguard for eight years. You just know what has to be done and you just do it. It helped that I was in the Prattsburgh area and I arrived in about three minutes.”
Thanks to an AED program established in 1999 by Undersheriff David Cole, each deputy carries an AED in his or her patrol vehicle.
“If I didn’t have an AED in my car, maybe the circumstance would have been different. I’m thankful for having the AED in my car,” Boyle said. “Today is my fourth day (on road patrol). I’ve been with the department three years in November.”
Cole said this is the fourth time a person has been saved since the AED program began and the second time this year. He said Deputy Jen Reed saved a man in Hammondsport last spring. The man was given three shocks from the AED and taken to Ira Davenport Memorial Hospital.
Cole said when someone goes into cardiac arrest, an AED does not restart his or her heart, but stops it so that it will start on its own.
“The deputy’s job is to use the AED to actually shock the heart. The defibrillator will stop that person’s erratic heart rhythm,” he said. “Deputies, once they revive somebody, they generally will have the ALS and the ambulance come right after them. Our policies are that the deputy will step aside if a person of higher skill, like an EMT, comes in.”
Cole said when a person is in cardiac arrest, there is roughly an eight to 10 minute window before his or her heart stops. If someone is not actually in cardiac arrest, the machine will not administer a shock, he said.
“She aggressively did a hell of a job,” Cole said of Boyle. “We want them to be aggressive on it. Deputy Boyle saved this guy’s life. There’s no doubt about it. I do know he was sitting up and talking in the ambulance after the shock.”
Cole said there will likely be an event held to honor Boyle, but said he needs to discuss it with Sheriff Richard Tweddell first.
Emergency 911 dispatchers will contact state police and deputies on ambulance calls and tell them where the ambulance is going, Cole said.
“Without that, this would never have happened this morning. For that reason, 911 is a key player,” he said