AURORA | A game of “old man’s” basketball at Altitude Elementary School became a life-and-death cardiac scare but ended with a saved life.
Second-grade teacher James Christensen said doctors and nurses in the emergency room he was rushed to Nov. 24 told him his colleague’s quick response was what saved him from death by heart attack in November.
“You’ve got some good friends,” Christensen recalled he was told. “They saved your life. Without them, you wouldn’t be here.”
It happened Nov. 24, when an after-hours pick-up basketball game at the southeast Aurora school turned into a life-or-death situation. During the game, Christensen collapsed and staff members playing thought at first he was having a seizure.
Once they determined it was a heart attack, the staff jumped into action, calling for help and sustaining his life until rescuers came.
On Wednesday, Cherry Creek School District and Aurora Fire Rescue honored school Principal Scott Schleich and his coworkers for their quick efforts to save Christensen’s life.
According to everyone involved, it was thanks to that quick thinking and the coordinated actions of Schleich, his son, Garrett, Jordan McCord and Gary Dudak.
Eric Hill, medical director for Aurora Fire Rescue In Aurora said that when someone has a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital the national average of having an “intact survivor” who can return to work almost immediately is only 7%.
“In Aurora, we work really hard at this, and we are typically around double that national average,” Hill said. “That’s really because we put so much emphasis with our paramedics about how to do high quality CPR, how to deal with what’s important in a case and how to get there quickly.”
Principal Schleich ran for an automated external defibrillator at the school and administered it. Garrett Schleich and McCord performed chest compressions. Meanwhile, Dudak called 911, according to Lauren Snell, Cherry Creek Schools public information officer.
Schleich learned CPR techniques from a school nurse. He said he never expected to use it in an emergency.
“I never expected that I would need it, but when this happened in our gym, there was no thinking,” he said. “It was all reacting. And so I think because of that, time was saved.”
Despite thinking at first that Christensen was having a seizure, Schleich said that for some reason or “divine intervention” he decided to grab the defibrillator and have it ready before Christensen’s heart stopped. Schleich got choked up thinking of the possibilities of if anything went differently.
The room was filled with people saying how grateful they were for how successful the situation turned out.
Christensen laughed saying that he was still sore from CPR but already back at work. He said he did not know he had a heart problem but joked that now he had another thing in common with his mom, who was there with the rest of his family to celebrate his life being saved.
Awards were given to all of the men who initially helped him in the gym, including the Cherry Creek Hero Award that celebrates exceptional contributions to the community, Phoenix Awards from Falck Rocky Mountain, Phoenix Awards from the Aurora 911 for the helpers and for Toccara Turner the 911 dispatcher who helped with the incident and Phoenix Awards from Aurora Fire Rescue to the paramedics who responded quickly.