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ASHLAND A female high school student is recovering after her heart stopped from a cardiac episode during school hours.
Annastasia Brianna-Mari Tipton (Annie), a 14-year-old student at Ashland Blazer High School, is in recovery at Cabell Huntington Hospital after suffering a major cardiac episode at school on Friday, Sept. 29. Her father, Lee Barker, said he’s at a loss for words on the swift actions made by the school to save his daughter’s life.
From the initial phone call to finding out she had collapsed to her heart having to be shocked and to her being in a life-threatening situation, Barker said, “it was a total nightmare; it was like the whole world had stopped.
“I had just seen my daughter that morning I was talking to her — wishing her a good day at school. We had talked about watching one of our favorite animes that evening,” he said.
Not even a couple hours later, his wife received a phone call from the school to pick their daughter up. While she was en route, a second phone call was made to the family stating Annie had collapsed and didn’t have a heartbeat.
“I really didn’t think too much in it until I got that second call and my wife just broke down then I was in parent mode at the time, just like, oh my gosh, she’s 14 years old,” Barker said. “She should not be having these problems.”
Lee said the cardiac episode that his daughter went through happened unexpectedly and that she had never had heart problems in the past.
“It’s one of those heart problems that you don’t know you have unless you have a heart attack or either you find out in the hospital or when you are dead,” he said. “We are by far lucky and it’s by the grace of God that she is standing.”
Annie’s father said the school’s quick actions saved his daughter’s life.
“It was like boom, boom, boom,” he said. “It just fell into place so fast, it’s just hard to explain.
“I will tell you from the bottom of my heart that I have never in my entire life seen a school that has ever performed as admirably as Paul Blazer High did,” he said. “From the time that the gym teacher let her go and see the nurse to the nurse giving her CPR, to the teacher going with my wife to sit with her with my daughter at King’s Daughters … I have never seen a school do that before and I am at a loss for words. I can not say enough good about a school that would go out of their way to do this for my family. I can’t thank them enough.”
He said while in the waiting room the doctor approached him and his wife. The doctor said the staff at Paul Blazer High is the reason Annie is here today.
“I just owe them more than what I can ever give for the life of my daughter,” Barker said.
Jamie Campbell, Principal of Ashland Blazer High School, was among the staff performing CPR on Annie. He said, “Friday afternoon we had a lot of emotionally spent people in our office. I walked in my office at the end of the day, I turned the air conditioning on high and I sat there and just cried.
“I know that there was several others in that same situation,” he said. “We are just thankful and hoping and praying that she turns this around and is able to join us again. That will be a very happy day when she walks back on Blazer’s campus.”
He said the student was in a physical education class when she began to notice she wasn’t feeling well.
“The student was in gym class, walking laps and had sat down complaining of dizziness and shortness of breath,” he said. “Our PE teacher had walked her up to our nurse, Andrew Manis, where he checked her out and called her mother to come get her.”
Added Campbell: “Typically if we have a student that’s not contagious, we pull them out and sit them in the office area, which is a few doors down from the nurse’s office, in an effort to expedite their process of leaving when the parent gets there.”
Campbell said after she was checked out by the nurse she was doing OK for a period of time until she collapsed in the floor of the office, going unresponsive.
“She comes into the room and she collapses on the floor, she started to jerk a little and demonstrated what we thought was a seizure,” Campbell said. “Our office staff called for the nurse to come back and the nurse began working with her.”
With Annie’s mother on the way, and with 911 called, things began to escalate, he said. “We get to that point and then I am told the nurse has started chest compressions and she doesn’t have a heart beat.”
Campbell and Manis performed CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation) on Annie until Emergency Medical Services arrived.
“When I get up there our nurse has gone through one round of chest compressions and breaths,” he said. “I come in and I take over the chest compressions and he is doing the breathing part of CPR for her. She fell down and collapsed right under our AED that’s on the wall in the office.
“We get the AED out, we open it up and we put it on her — it does not detect a heartbeat, it then said no heartbeat detected, so we continue chest compressions — we did chest compressions and breathing for about seven to 10 minutes. It seemed like it was hours.
“I don’t remember thinking, if that make sense, it all just happened and I know that sounds crazy; everything was very instinctual.”
“We train on our AEDs, with CPR and these ways so that if it happens we are ready to do it,” Campbell said. “You always think it’s never going to happen. … I don’t think we even thought, it was just a matter of, she’s down, she needs help, this is what we are supposed to do.”
Training staff on AEDs is as vital as training students on how to operate one, he said. Older people are more prone to facing cardiac-related issues.
Campbell said all of his staff at the high school followed protocol and did a great job securing the scene and taking quick action.
“They were able to make sure the campus was completely clear, that our parking lots and lanes were clear,” he said. “Everyone did everything that they were supposed to do and trained to do, and I couldn’t be any more proud of my people that are at Blazer.”
A GoFundMe fundraiser endorsed by Annie’s father has been created to help the family pay for expenses of medical bills. The GoFundMe is as follows: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-support-a-family-in-crisismedical-expenses?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer.
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