She revived a teacher that went into cardiac arrest

By Jami Cale, as published in the O'Fallon Journal .

It happened about 11 a.m.

Karen Dix, a nurse at Wentzville's Timberland High School, was sitting in her office, across the hall from the faculty lounge.

Lawrence Kiefer, a science teacher, was in the faculty lounge, Dix said. He had just finished lunch with several other teachers.

All of a sudden, he collapsed.

During the same morning that a weapons threat created what many called an already frightening April 20, Timberland High School students and teachers got another scare. Kiefer suffered cardiac arrest that nearly cost him his life.

"I couldn't get it off my mind," Dix said almost one week after she used an automated external defibrillator to shock Kiefer's heart. "It stays with you. You replay it."

Dix said she was most thankful the school had an AED - a portable device that measures the electrical activity of the heart. If the machine detects a fatal heart rhythm, it delivers an electrical shock to try and restore a normal heartbeat. Shocking the heart is the most effective way to treat sudden cardiac arrest.

When Kiefer collapsed, Dix said she performed CPR on him for about two minutes before the AED machine advised her to deliver a shock. It only took one to revive him, she said.

But it wasn't that long ago that Kiefer's luck might have run out.

Lead nurse Debbie Tuitasi said AEDs were installed in Wentzville schools in November of 2005. School officials placed an AED in the buildings after a Wentzville South Middle School student collapsed one month earlier during a physical education class. The school nurse performed CPR for more than 10 minutes. No defibrillator was available.

First responders were able to start the student's heart with a defibrillator upon their arrival.

"People don't understand in general what CPR or AED means," she said. "And an AED, that's a matter of life or death. When I think about how an irregular rhythm or no heart rhythm can be regained…that's a huge outcome."

Tuitasi said an AED machine now is located in nearly every Wentzville school, and two in both high schools. She also has requested that an AED be purchased for use at the Harris Building - an alternative school - and the central office, by support services and for the fourth-grade field trips to Cuivre River State Park.

Dix said she received a grant from the American Red Cross to purchase another AED, five mannequins and five AED training machines. School nurses are to become certified to teach CPR classes, which would include a unit on AEDs, and students in child development classes also would receive the training, she said.

As for Kiefer, Dix said, he was conscious and speaking upon transport to a hospital. He now has an internal defibrillator implanted in his chest.

He is doing well, she said, for which she is thankful.

"It's very scary. I was responsible and that's a really heavy weight," Dix said. "After this was all said and done, I'm so thankful we had an AED. I just thank God he came out of this."