Canadian School Resource Officer, Deputy Save Student’s Life
The two men performed CPR on the 16-year-old until paramedics arrived.
Columbia River High School enrolls more than 1,300 students.
A school resource officer and a county sheriff in Vancouver are being credited with saving a high school student’s life after he collapsed during a football practice May 18.
School resource officer Joe Reed and Clark County Sheriff’s Deputy Albin Boyse were directing traffic outside of Columbia River High School when a custodian told them a student had collapsed over the radio system, according to katu.com.
The two officers rushed to the school’s gym, where they found a 16-year-old student in cardiac arrest. Reed and Boyse immediately began performing CPR after they couldn’t pick up a pulse on the teen.
“I just kept talking to him and letting him know we were right there,” Reed says. “It was sort of a surreal time. It would just seem like time was standing still for us.”
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While the officers were performing CPR, a staff member brought over an automated external defibrillator. The AED’s computer, which monitors the victim’s heart rhythm, determined no shock was needed.
When paramedics arrived, the student had a pulse again and was taken to a local hospital, where he is recovering. Doctors later credited the CPR for saving the student’s life.
The Vancouver School District, which has 34 schools and three additional programs, keeps AEDs at each of their schools in addition to portable devices in some school busses and security vehicles. They paid for the devices largely with donations and worked with a nearby healthcare system to determine the best locations to store them.
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