Kentucky police officer jumps into action to save man with new AED
After losing all vital signs, a man was brought back from the brink of death because of the quick action by an Alexandria, Kentucky, police officer and a device she had been given just a couple of hours earlier.
"I think I’m still trying to process it,” said Alexandria officer Whitney Buerger. "I don't think I really realized, like, the magnitude of it until I got off shift that day."
It began with a call for help.
“The call came out that there was a male unresponsive on the floor and that the family was starting compressions,” Buerger said.
She was first on the scene, arriving in less than five minutes, but she was afraid it might be too late.
"He was pretty far gone,” she said.
But there was a chance because of something that had happened just two days before.
Christ Hospital, St. Elizabeth Hospital and Rotary Clubs recently distributed 168 automated external defibrillators to police departments around Northern Kentucky, including the Alexandria Police Department.
One was taken by Buerger as she got on shift. It was the first day the AED had been deployed.
Buerger was able to use the device to bring the man back to life.
"I think that it was absolutely 100% the AED that helped him. I think if I didn't have it, I don't know. I don't know what would have happened to him,” she said.
Getting that AED just in time wasn’t the only event that had to happen for things to work out exactly as they did. So did something that happened nearly 20 years ago.
"So, I actually had a cardiac arrest when I was 14,” Buerger said.
She was saved by a passerby, and now there’s a way to return the favor.
“Just, like, kind of full-circle moment, like, that happened to me then, so that I could be here for him now and he can be there for his kids and his spouse and family and everything," said Buerger.
