http://ozarkspub.vo.llnwd.net/o37/KSMU/audio/mp3/after-7th-grader-collapses-track-meet-nixa-coach-steps-lifesaving-skills_80745.mp3
It's a blustery, gray Spring afternoon when I arrive at Nixa High School. Boys and girls are dispersing to their locker rooms after track practice as I find my way to Coach Lance Brumley. He was recently honored as an Everyday Hero by the American Red Cross. Brumley coaches high school cross-country and track. He is one of several who were honored this month, and says he's been humbled by the experience. Here's a bit of his story:
On a warm, September day, Brumley was helping out with a junior high cross-country meet when he got a phone call.
"It was during the 7thgrade boy's race. We have kids that follow along behind the race in a John Deere side-by-side Gator. Their job is just to follow the last couple of runners to make sure everything is good. This young man had gone down and they didn't know why, and they called me," says Brumley.
Although he rarely answers his phone during meets, he says, he was glad he answered that day. When he got to the boy, he found him unresponsive. Brumley says his first thought was that the 7th grader had a seizure, but quickly realized it was far more serious. An off-duty EMT just happened to have pulled over on the roadside. The EMT called 911, and Coach Brumley began to perform CPR on the boy.
"It didn't take very long, it was just a few minutes and I heard the first responder's sirens. As soon as they got there they put the AED paddles on him and assessed his heart and realized there wasn't a heartbeat. They continued CPR and not long after that the ambulance showed up," Brumley says.
Brumley says the boy was from an away-team so he had no family at the meet. He was taken to a hospital where he was in ICU for several days. There, doctors discovered that he had a heart birth defect.
"A couple of days later [they] flew him to Kansas City where he had surgery to repair a birth defect in his heart. It took quite a while but he finally made a recovery and shortly before Christmas went home," says Brumley.
Brumley got to meet the boy he helped save at the Red Cross event and says it was a tremendous experience. He says that, for weeks after the event, he was unsure whether or not the boy was going to survive. Only in the past few weeks has that student been able to return to school.
Brumley refuses to take all of the credit and says he just did what anyone would have done. He says many people were responsible for the boy's survival that day.
"You got to be prepared—you know be ready. God might put you in a spot. When he does, you know, just do your part. People say 'Oh, that's awesome I couldn't have done that.' And I say, 'Yeah you could have.' You know, when you're in that situation and you've been trained to do something you don't even think about doing it. You just jump in there and do it. Nothing crossed my mind besides, 'I'm going to start pushing on this kid's chest and start breathing and hope for the best,'" Brumley says.
All Missouri high school activity association coaches must be certified in CPR, says Brumley. He says now he has a better appreciation of why that's so important.
"You know, a school our size, everywhere you go there's a trainer, there's medical personnel. We would joke as coaches 'there's so many people around everything we do—why are we here?' Well you're here because you never know," Brumley says.
And he has a bit of advice for the rest of us.
"Pay attention to the 'now', you know, whatever your present is. I happened to be in those CPR meetings for a reason. I didn't know what that reason was then, but I know now. You never know when a situation may come up that you need to be a part of,"
