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Heart attack victim Tina Johnson uses a treadmill in the Mary Washington Hospital Cardiovascular Pulmonary Health and Fitness Center. She was brought back from a heart attack she had at school last May.
Tina Johnson gets checked by Mary Washington Hospital respiratory therapist Carol Klein during physical therapy. Johnson suffered sudden cardiac arrest while teaching in May. |
For the first time in two months, Tina Johnson got behind the wheel of a car recently.
"It was heavenly," said Johnson, 55, a special education art teacher at Spotsylvania County's Ni River Middle School.
Johnson slept away much of the past two months. And if it weren't for the bandage on the left side of her chest, she wouldn't believe what happened May 1.
"I thought, 'Oh my God. It's real,'" she said. "Nothing really hit home 'til I saw it."
Johnson doesn't remember her co-teacher's call to the main office to dial 911. A seventh-grader had seen Johnson slumped at her desk and alerted the other teacher.
The substitute nurse and school principal rushed to the classroom, which had been cleared of students.
They performed CPR on Johnson and shocked her with an automated external defibrillator.
Eleven minutes passed.
By the time paramedics arrived, her pulse had faded in and out.
Johnson, who had worn a pacemaker for more than a year, had suffered sudden cardiac arrest, a condition so fatal victims rarely survive it outside a hospital.
But Johnson woke up, surrounded by family and friends at Mary Washington Hospital. Everyone credits the school staff's quick thinking and the defibrillator located above the clinic door.
Weeks before, Johnson went through a series of tests that gave no indication this would happen.
"No warning," she said. "Absolutely no warning."
RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME
Virginia law requires at least two employees in school buildings with a staff of 10 or more to be trained in CPR. Ni River Principal Stephen Covert, who's CPR-certified, said he hopes Johnson's case will prompt others to get training.
Still, quick thinking and CPR alone wouldn't have saved Johnson. The defibrillator played a crucial role.
First installed in Spotsylvania high schools in 2004, defibrillators are now in every county school. In 2004, Spotsylvania Schools' Health Services Director Pat Smith won a $6,000 grant from the Mary Washington Hospital Foundation to start purchasing defibrillators for the schools. The School Board matched it.
"It gives you the power to save a life," Smith said.
Under sudden cardiac arrest, Johnson's heart stop-ped. The defibrillator shocked her heart back into normal rhythm.
The odds of surviving sudden cardiac arrest drop 7 to 10 percent each minute without defibrillation, according to the American Heart Association. Someone who isn't defibrillated within 8 to 10 minutes has virtually no chance of survival.
This was the second time Ni River used the defibril-lator: In 2005, a student
This time, everyone was at the right place at the right time, Covert said.
'BLESSED'
Johnson's old pacemaker was replaced with one that has a built-in defibrillator. When the wires didn't work, she had a second surgery to fix them.
Her daughter has been at her side "like gum." Johnson finds this funny and, as someone who's used to looking out for everyone but herself, slightly irritating.
Johnson couldn't finish out the school year but wants to return in the fall.
She wonders about her students.
Eddie Reyes, the seventh-grader who saw Johnson slumped at her desk, called her at the hospital.
"It was the first time I cried," she said.
Johnson can't articulate how grateful she is to the Ni River staff.
"You can call it lucky," she said. "I just think I was blessed."
Karen Bolipata 540/374-5418
Email: kbolipata@freelancestar.com
