The Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank has a team of first responders, a few employees that have practiced CPR on dummies but have never had to use the automated external defibrillator that hangs from a conference room wall.
Until Wednesday.
Just after 10 a.m., Laura Deubel ran from her office to investigate a call that a volunteer had fallen.
As soon as she saw the scene, she shouted “Code Blue!” to another office worker, who repeated the phrase over the plant’s speakers.
The chilling words echoed in offices, in hallways, in the cafeteria. Designated staffers dropped their duties and raced to the distribution warehouse, where they found Horace Lewis on the floor.
The staff knows Lewis well. The 87-year-old started volunteering with Bridging the Gap Ministries, an organization in Akron’s international North Hill neighborhood, about five years ago after benefiting from their food pantry.
Each week, he runs to the food bank to pick up groceries that will be distributed to refugees and others in need.
But now Lewis was prone on the concrete floor.
The training that employees had never used in a real situation — had hoped to never use in a real situation — kicked in.
Foodbank president Dan Flowers pulled the AED off the wall and ran to Lewis’ side, where Firestone Park YMCA volunteer Christin Domonkos was looking for a pulse. There was none.
Time to use the AED, Domonkos told Flowers.
That was office manager Karen Sheppard’s cue to prepare the defibrillator while others exposed Lewis’ torso. She attached the leads from the machine, which gave the order “Clear!” Then Sheppard applied the electric charge.
“Administer CPR,” the machine said.
Senior operations manager Matt Petrick took over, compressing Lewis’ chest 30 times, just as he had been taught to do. Push harder, the still-attached AED told him. He pushed harder.
Then it was Flowers’ turn. He leaned in and applied two direct breaths into Lewis’ mouth, just the way he had practiced with a mannequin.
Thirty more compressions from Petrick. More mouth-to-mouth, this time from Firestone Park YMCA volunteer Shana DeBerte. Then more compressions. Then more breaths, DeBerte and Flowers alternating.
Time for another shock, the AED instructed the team. “Clear!” it shouted as the would-be rescuers raised their hands. Sheppard pushed the button a second time, sending a shock to Lewis’ heart.
As the team continued CPR, the paramedics arrived. They took Lewis — that familiar face, that cheery disposition — away in a ambulance.
The food bank employees were left with their thoughts and their fears. Did they move fast enough? Did they do everything right?
“It’s much different doing chest compressions on a human than on a dummy,” Petrick said. “It’s real. You keep thinking, am I doing everything I can to give this person the best chance at life?”
And then just after 2:30 p.m., a phone call. Lewis was alive. Doctors had inserted stents in the arteries that lead to his heart, then placed him in a medically induced coma to keep his body calm while it tries to repair the damage.
“It was a glorious feeling,” Flowers said. He recalled years ago, before the AED, someone died of a heart attack in the plant. It felt good to have a different outcome.
“The AED made all the difference. It really took command of the situation,” he said.
But food bank operations director Jennifer Dyer, the one who picks the Code Blue team and schedules those training sessions, said the AED can’t do it alone. She said she was incredibly proud as she watched her colleagues work on Lewis on Wednesday.
“To see their hands influencing the life of this person …” she said.
On Thursday, Mary Michel, a pastor at Bridging the Gap, stopped in to thank the rescuers. No one knows if Lewis will recover, she said. He’s three years away from his 90th birthday.
“What the food bank did here brought the family and friends some hope,” Michel said. “If they hadn’t done what they did, I would be planning his funeral right now.”
Whatever the future holds, Lewis, a man who himself had been rescued from a difficult and troubled life, fell doing something he was passionate about, Michel said.
“The last few years of his life were so peaceful and rewarding. He was really contributing to the community and supporting the North Hill area, which has this huge refugee population. He so embraced that, helping those people coming in … taking them things and making sure they had food,” Michel said. “He went down doing what he loved doing.”
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/paulaschleis.