It's National Emergency Medical Services Week! During this week in May every year the Forest Grove City Council recognizes the work that first responders do in the community to provide critical life saving care to those in need. This year EMS Week has a special meaning for our firefighters however, in the last year a man's life was saved in part because of the work of our Paramedics, but mostly because of the quick actions of a local woman to save the life of one of her employees. At the May 14, 2012 Forest Grove City Council meeting, Fire Chief Michael Kinkade was honored to present Phoebe Reinecker with the Forest Grove Citizen's Service Award to recognize her inspiring story of how effective CPR can make a difference and save a life.
Phoebe Reinecker receives the FGF&R Citizen's Service Award from Fire Chief Michael Kinkade
On the afternoon October 24, 2011, Phoebe Reinecker, a longtime resident of our community and owner of Reinecker Nursery, was in her home office, the work day almost done, when she heard one of her employees call for help. An otherwise healthy man in his early fifties, and longtime employee of her small horticulture business near Forest Grove, had suddenly gone into cardiac arrest and had collapsed near one of the greenhouses. Reacting quickly Phoebe made the one hundred yard dash to the man who was unconscious and not breathing. Knowing exactly what to do, Phoebe began to apply very effective CPR to the man she had worked with for so long.
The American Heart Association created the term “Chain of Survival” to describe how timing is everything when it comes to a successful resuscitation of a cardiac arrest victim, and this case shows exactly how essential this timing really is. With her swift actions, Mrs. Reinecker effectively connected the first two links (early access to 9-1-1, and early CPR) of the chain of survival. When Paramedic/Firefighters from the Forest Grove Fire Station arrived within five minutes they were able to provide the other two links of the chain that include cardiac defibrillation for the unconscious man as well as advanced life support care. These steps combined with Mrs. Reinecker’s earlier response restarted the man’s heart; by the time that he had arrived at Tuality Hospital in nearby Hillsboro, the man had even started to wake up and begin to speak. Within a matter of weeks, after a successful heart surgery, he had returned to work and is still there to this day helping the family owned company grow beautiful flowers and horticulture products.
Local life saver Phoebe Reinecker with her husband Mike, and the FGF&R crew that took over for her effective CPR that saved a life of one of her employees last October
Sadly, most sudden cardiac arrest calls do not end this way, in fact less than 8% of victims of sudden cardiac arrest survive the event and the damage it causes to the human body. What's amazing in this family's story is that even though this is Mrs. Reinecker's first time doing CPR on a live person, this is not the first time that a life has been saved on her property. Around 1987 a 19 month old boy crawled into a covered swimming pool and was rescued by Phoebe's husband Mike and the boy's father. Effective CPR was given in that incident too, and just a few years ago that boy graduated from the Air Force Academy as a young man. In almost every incident where a victim of sudden cardiac arrest survives it is because someone helped them with early and effective CPR, which can cause survival rates to double or triple in some instances. There is no doubt that in this incident the man is able to be among us today because of the calm yet quick actions that Mrs. Reinecker took to save his life. If you have a few hours, take a friends and family CPR course, you never know when the things you learn will help you save a life.
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