Chico >> The quick reaction of faculty and firefighters saved the life of a 17-year-old girl who collapsed while at school Wednesday.
At about 1:30 p.m., Chico fire’s Station 2 members were dispatched to a call of someone having difficulty breathing at Inspire School of Arts and Sciences.
“We were expecting to find someone having problems breathing, but we were not expecting the situation to be as dire as it was,” Chico fire Capt. Chris Zinko said.
When Zinko and the rest of the Station 2 crew arrived, faculty members were performing CPR on an unresponsive girl.
Firefighters stepped in to perform CPR and quickly got out an automatic external defibrillator, Zinko said. He said the defibrillator told firefighters the patient needed to be shocked, and three shocks later, “she was able to come back.”
The girl started breathing on her own, and by the time she was in the ambulance on her way to Enloe Medical Center, she was talking to a firefighter, he said.
Zinko, who along with the rest of the members of Station 2 stopped by the hospital to check on the girl, said she’s doing well.
She and her parents thanked the Fire Department, Zinko said, but he personally wanted to thank the faculty, whose quick reaction gave her a chance to survive.
It was extremely vital to get CPR performed quickly, he said. They kept her heart working and the Fire Department was able to get in there and shock it back into a rhythm, he said.
Contact reporter Almendra Carpizo at 896-7770
