A Eureka-area business owner and a 2016 Eureka High graduate used their knowledge of CPR to help save a man’s life, the Eureka Fire Protection District reported.
Emma Petry, a nursing student who lives in Branson, and Jerry Kirk, who owns Brookdale Farms, teamed up to help a survey worker after he suffered cardiac arrest Aug. 6 on South Central Avenue, Eureka Fire public information officer Scott Barthelmass said.
“I really think the citizens’ efforts in providing CPR were vital in the gentleman’s ability to be alive today,” he said.
Barthelmass said privacy laws restrict him from identifying the survey crew member who was working on the road, and Petry and Kirk said they didn’t know the man’s name.
Helping hands
Petry, 22, said she was in Eureka because her sister, Madi Tuescher, was getting married. She was coming back from getting her nails done with her sister when she noticed the man needed help.
“It looked like he had almost fallen or something, and his friend was trying to help him get up,” she said. “So, I thought I was just going to get out to help him stand up, really. As I was walking towards them, he had collapsed and fell on his face.”
Petry said she rushed to the man, rolled him on his back and felt for a pulse.
“I didn’t feel one, so I started CPR,” she said.
Petry said she also checked that another bystander was calling 911.
Kirk, 60, was driving a school bus that he uses to transport customers for river floats when he saw the commotion on the road. Even though the bus was full of customers, he stopped to see what was going on, he said.
“There were some people walking around, milling around on their cell phones and I thought, ‘That’s weird,’” Kirk said.
Kirk said the man’s face was blue when he arrived.
“I had been doing (CPR), I don’t really remember how long, but (Kirk) showed up and he offered to take over, if I needed someone to take over,” Petry said. “I said, ‘Not right now, but I’ll let you know when I’m ready.’”
Kirk said he made sure the man’s head was stabilized, and Petry soon asked him to take over administering CPR.
“I got a little winded,” she said. “He hopped right in and took over. I just kind of made sure we were keeping his head stabilized.”
Barthelmass said crews were dispatched at 10:49 a.m. and arrived at 10:52 a.m. to relieve Kirk and Petry.
“They loaded him in the ambulance, and my understanding was they had to (use a defibrillator on) him again in the ambulance and he recovered, which never happens,” said Kirk, who also said Eureka Fire personnel used a defibrillator on the man after they first arrived.
Kirk’s training
Kirk said this is the fourth time he has performed CPR, but it is the first time the person recovered.
“Most of the time you get there and too much time has elapsed from the cardiac arrest or the incident or whatever, to the time CPR starts,” he said. “That’s why people don’t necessarily do well.”
Kirk said he learned CPR about 40 years ago when he was a St. Louis County Police Officer. He said he became an officer in 1981, but he retired from the force in 1989 after suffering a gunshot wound in 1987.
“It was weird because when you’re a police officer, you do these kinds of things, honestly, every day or a couple times,” he said. “This time was a little weird because it’s been 30 years since I did anything.”
Kirk said he never imagined he would use his CPR skills again.
“I keep joking with everybody that the next time I was going to hear CPR and my name associated, I thought it would have been somebody doing it on me,” he said.
Reassuring moment
Petry said she learned CPR in her classes at College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout.
“The college always does simulations of CPR and whatnot,” she said. “I have been prepared for it pretty well.”
Petry said she had served as an intern at Mercy Hospital in Springfield this summer and CPR has been on her mind.
“Working at the hospital, I’ve been thinking about, ‘Man, what would happen if I walked into a patient’s room and they were not responsive?’” she said. “Would I be able to take the initiative to actually call a code and initiate that?”
She said the incident in Eureka has helped her decide what she will do with her nursing degree.
“I think that God really had prepared me for that moment,” Petry said. “I had been struggling with trying to decide what department I wanted to work in when I graduated. I think I had always kind of been between ER (emergency room) and ICU (intensive care unit) because I like being kept on my toes and thinking on my feet. I think this definitely helped me kind of decide that ER is where I want to go.”
Petry said she will graduate in May 2021.