Julio Salcedo thought a carbonated soda might relieve the pressure he was feeling in his chest. He just finished warming up with one of his grandson’s teammates and was climbing the bleachers to sit with his daughter, Diane Figuly, and watch the volleyball tournament at Nevada Union High School in Grass Valley, California. The noise in the gym made it difficult for Diane to hear what her father was saying as he sat down next to her. Suddenly his face turned a deep shade of red and he started to pitch forward. Diane stood up and screamed for help.
An assist from spectators
Bystander and fellow parent Jeff Haut heard Diane’s screams and quickly laid Julio on the bench to keep him from falling to the gym floor. Diane called 911, the referees stopped the game, and another bystander, Sloan Ann Clayton, put a mask on Julio and began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
School nurse Karen Harris was working late when she heard an alarm. “I thought one of the students had messed with the automated external defibrillator (AED) storage box in the hallway,” she recalls. Karen found the box that normally held a ZOLL® AED empty, and someone was calling for her to come to the gym.
Strong resuscitation efforts
“I remember thinking that he looked pretty bad,” she recalls. “His skin was ashen, and he was lifeless. He had no pulse and wasn’t breathing.” Karen immediately started cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). After several compressions, she asked Sloan Ann to take over so she could attach the ZOLL AED Plus® that was sitting on the bleacher next to Julio. It analyzed Julio’s heart rhythm and advised her to push a button to deliver a shock. The AED then instructed her to continue compressions. The device’s real-time guidance indicated that Karen wasn’t compressing fast enough so she adjusted her rhythm to follow the device’s metronome. Following the second shock, Diane heard her father take a ragged breath. When the EMTs arrived on the scene, Julio was breathing and had a pulse.
"I remember thinking that he looked pretty bad. His skin was ashen, and he was lifeless. He had no pulse and wasn’t breathing."
— Karen L. Harris
Credentialed School Nurse
Nevada Joint Union High School District
Julio’s hospital stay was short. His main coronary artery was blocked, and doctors implanted a stent. They told Julio’s family that without defibrillation Julio probably wouldn’t have survived. They didn’t believe that CPR alone would have kept him alive until EMTs were on scene.
Former coach returns to a game he loves
Two weeks after the incident, Julio walked into Karen’s office to thank her for her help. Following some medication adjustments and rest, Julio, a former volleyball coach, is back attending games. “It might be a blessing that he went down to help that player warm up,” Diane says. “If this had happened later when he was alone, things might not have turned out as well.” Diane considers them lucky that her father was somewhere bystanders with an AED could step in to help save his life that day. No one ever discovered who retrieved the AED, but Julio and his family are eternally grateful.