Heart-Attack Victim to Thank Rescuers — Including 9-1-1 Telecommunicator — at Ceremony
Sandra Bradley, The Union Leader (Manchester, NH)
Barnstead resident Jim Riley, 51, will celebrate more than the holidays this season. In a ceremony in Concord, Riley will celebrate with the friends, strangers and emergency dispatchers who saved his life when he suffered a heart attack Dec. 1 while on a roofing job in Alton.
The New Hampshire Bureau of Emergency Communications – Enhanced 911 – will host the celebration, which will bring together everyone involved in the life-saving effort, including 911 dispatcher Joyce Jastrem; Riley’s friend, Lynn Shull, who initially called 911; the two people who stopped their car to take over chest compressions and the call, Brett Kimball and David Elwell; and volunteer responders from the Alton Fire Department.
According to Wanda Bowers of the bureau’s public information office, Riley is an independent person who “lives off the grid” and prides himself on self-sufficiency. However, on Dec. 1 at 12:43 p.m., he became the center of a medical emergency. Riley was working on a roofing job with co-worker Lynn Shull when he suddenly collapsed. Shull immediately called 911 from her cell phone, and asked dispatcher Jastrem, “He’s purple, what do I do?”
When the dispatcher learned that Riley was not breathing, she alerted Jeff Tobine at Lakes Region Mutual Aid, who dispatched an ambulance to the site. Jastrem then initiated the Emergency Medical Dispatch procedure, scripted life-saving medical instructions. She said, “I’m going to tell you how to help him,” according to Bowers. Shull started chest compressions, and not long after, two passers-by, Kimball and Elwell, stopped to help. Kimball took over the cell phone for instructions from Jastrem and Elwell took over chest compressions from “a very exhausted” Shull.
Riley was still unconscious when Alton fire/rescue crews arrived and used a defibrillator to revive him. Riley was then taken by ambulance to Huggins Hospital, and then airlifted to Dartmouth Medical Center in Hanover, where doctors learned he had a 100 percent blockage in one of his arteries.
According to Bowers, Riley was home within a week and is doing well. Riley will reunite with his rescuers at today’s ceremony.
“I want to show my appreciation,” he said.
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