On Tuesday, Fenton Paul and Margaret Paul got reacquainted with four first responders involved with their 911 call back in July.
Allan Booth, an advanced life support paramedic, was the first to introduce himself at Richmond’s north ambulance station.
“You probably don't remember him,” Nahum Ip, district manager, joked.
That’s because the first time they met, Fenton didn’t have a pulse.
The 40-something Richmond resident had collapsed from a heart attack that evening. His sister Margaret performed CPR, and she was honoured for saving his life at a ceremony at the ambulance station.
The siblings had been on after-dinner walk July 5. As they dashed across No 5 Road, Margaret remembers checking over her shoulder to see her older brother falling to the ground.
At first she thought Fenton had tripped, but when she ran over to him he was unconscious and unresponsive. She checked for a pulse, and found none.
“I was a little taken back and confused because he was so well all evening,” she said. “I was angry and I was choked up. I thought, my brother can't die on the sidewalk.”
Margaret took her last CPR training course 20 years ago, back when she was trying to get into a nursing program. Though she was rusty, she moved her hands to Fenton’s chest and started compressions.
“It was terrifying,” she said. “I wasn't sure whether he was alive or dead or whether my efforts would save him.”
She phoned 911, her phone on speaker beside her. She looked frantically for house numbers to give responders an address, but was too far back to see any.
On the other end of the line, emergency medical call taker Michelle Wand guided her. She told Margaret how many compressions to do, and to not give up.
“Just listening to her voice was like having a beacon of hope that, ok, I'm actually doing the right thing,” Margaret said.
Once paramedics arrived, they defibrillated Fenton and took him to hospital.
“I don't know what to say, other than thank you,” Fenton told his sister and the assembled first responders Tuesday.
They gathered to present Margaret with a Vital Link Award to recognize her efforts. It’s BC Emergency Health Services’ most prestigious community honour, awarded to bystanders who help paramedics save a cardiac arrest patient’s life.
“Your brother is alive today, most likely, because of you,” Ip said.
Fenton, who Ip joked was an “unwilling participant” in the ordeal, says he doesn’t remember much of what happened that night. He says his recovery has been imperfect, adding that he feels his response times are slower now.
“But I'm continuing, trying to move forward,” he said.
Now, Margaret she says she wants to brush up on her CPR training and encourages others to take a course.
“A lot of people are reluctant to do CPR because they're not sure they're doing the right thing,” she said. “But doing nothing won't save a life.”
