On the evening of 7\/7\/09 at around 6:15pm, Long Beach Firefighter Kevin Byrne had to use the skills that we as a firefighters use everyday on the job, only this time he was off-duty and his friend\/teammate was involved. Kevin was playing basketball in Newport Beach, getting ready to sub into the game. His\u00a0teammate Dave was ready to come out for a break, when he bent over and rested his hands on his knees.\u00a0Dave then\u00a0called for a time out and then went down to the ground. Another teammate, Craig Covey\u00a0who is a Captain with OCFA, also noticed\u00a0his teammate\u00a0go down and both he and Kevin jumped into action.<\/p>\n
Byrne said Dave just went limp, falling flat on his back and slamming his head into the hardwood. Covey and Byrne rushed over while witnesses dialed 911.<\/p>\n
Immediately, the two men began performing CPR, first with Covey on the chest compressions and Byrne assisting with breathing. The men said from the time Dave collapsed to them performing CPR, maybe 30 seconds had passed. Both knew CPR is only a temporary fix. The gym did not have a portable Automatic External Defibrillator, which can measure a person\u2019s heart beat and give them the necessary shock. The men had to perform CPR for about four minutes, they said, before Newport Beach paramedics arrived with their defibrillator.<\/p>\n
When paramedics arrived, they immediately gave Dave a shock, and that was all he needed. By the time Dave got to\u00a0the hospital, he was conscious and talking to paramedics.<\/p>\n
This type of incident demonstrates the importance of immediate bystander CPR followed by rapid advanced life support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On the evening of 7\/7\/09 at around 6:15pm, Long Beach Firefighter Kevin Byrne had to use the skills that we as a firefighters use everyday on the job, only this time he was off-duty and his friend\/teammate was involved. Kevin was playing basketball in Newport Beach, getting ready to sub into the game. His\u00a0teammate Dave […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firechannel.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firechannel.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firechannel.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firechannel.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firechannel.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1482"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/firechannel.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1484,"href":"https:\/\/firechannel.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482\/revisions\/1484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firechannel.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firechannel.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firechannel.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}