CPR | 8-year-old revived after heart stops on playground

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CPR 8-year-old revived after heart stops
on playground
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Sofia Montoya had been practicing her favorite
song for her elementary schools talent show
April 22. She sang Rachel Plattens Fight Song
over and over again with her mother, Shawna. But
Sofia didnt make it to the show. The bubbly,
bright third-grader at Farallone View Elementary
in Montara, California, was on the playground on
April 18. Shed been playing on a playscape but
sat down on the ground, told a classmate she felt
weird, and fell backward. Sofias heart had
stopped. Staff members saw the lifeless child
and called 911. The dispatcher walked a staffer
through CPR. A sheriff in the neighborhood heard
the call come over 911 and went to the scene and
took over. A school secretary called Shawna.
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Her voice was shaking, and she said, Something
bad has happened. You need to get to school right
away, Shawna said. When Shawna arrived, she
saw two firetrucks and two ambulances. Panicked,
she tried to tell herself it must be an open
fracture, she said. She walked toward the
playground, noticing a horrible quiet. The
children had been taken inside. She saw only
Sofia, lying on the ground. Her own heart almost
stopped. I saw her lying in the wood chips on
the playground. It was so still and quiet on the
playground, Shawna said. All she could see was
her daughter with an oxygen mask on and a neck
brace. A firefighter captain approached
her. The good news is that we do have a pulse,
he told Shawna. And shes taking some breaths on
her own.
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Thats good news? Shawna thought. What is going
on? Sofia had gone into cardiac arrest, they
told her. Shed need to be transported by Life
Flight to Lucile Packard Childrens Hospital
Stanford in Palo Alto. Shawna called her
husband, Dan, who rushed to the hospital. We got
to see her for five minutes before they rushed
her off, Shawna said. I saw one of her tennis
shoes on the floor and wood chips in her
hair. Had Sofia not received CPR from a
bystander and shocks from an automated external
defibrillator, she would not have survived, said
Scott Ceresnak, M.D., her pediatric cardiologist
at Packard Childrens. The CPR and AED saved
her life, Ceresnak said.
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It took several days for doctors to diagnose
Sofias disorder a very rare type of long QT
syndrome, a condition that affects the hearts
electrical activity. Sofia carries a gene known
as CALM3 that has only recently been identified,
Ceresnak said. Doctors implanted a cardioverter
defibrillator or what Sofia knows as heart
helper to help prevent another cardiac
arrest. Tests are still being done to determine
treatment going forward, and Sofia has just
completed cardiac rehabilitation. Sofia still has
some memory problems, Shawna said, and she is not
reading at the high level she did before her
collapse. Sofia does not remember collapsing.
She isnt exactly clear why Life Flight nurse
Shara Griffis is such a good friend or why nurses
at the childrens hospital tear up when they see
her. But Shawna and Dan know, and they are
forever grateful to Sofias treatment team, from
the bystanders to firefighters to the surgical
team, and to those who fund and conduct research
on heart disease.
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She is the culmination of many, many years of
hard work, said Shawna. Were those people
whose kids life was saved because of
you. Lynda Knight, director of the Revive
Initiative for Resuscitation Excellence at
Stanford Childrens Health, has conducted studies
about the effectiveness of bystander CPR. Based,
in part, on those studies, Revive sends CPR
Anytime kits home with parents of children with
heart disease. Also, more than 1,500 local
healthcare professionals are trained yearly in
pediatric advanced life support through the
Revive American Heart Association Training Center
at the childrens hospital. It all came full
circle with this amazing little girl, Knight
said. She has become the little light in my
life. Sofia is why I do what I do every
day. Ceresnak said that seeing Sofia healthy
again is the greatest reward. To see that smile
that goes from ear to ear, that zest for life,
its just so great to see her alive and doing
well, he said.
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While Sofia did not get to sing Fight Song at
the talent show, she and her mother sang it
together as she was being wheeled into surgery
for her ICD. And, the school played an audio
recording of Sofia singing the song when they
held the talent show four days after her cardiac
arrest. A teacher held up cue cards for the
children to sing the refrain together. I think
its safe to say there wasnt a dry eye in the
place, Shawna said. Learn more about CPR.
Bergenfield, NJ, Jersey City, NJ, Livingston, NJ,
and Queens, New York. Source
newsarchive.heart.org
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