Lifesaving staffers at Homestead
Nurses, others hailed for fast action after student’s heart stopped
Homestead High School senior Abishek Chintapalli doesn’t remember much of the morning of Feb. 4.
He doesn’t remember picking up papers from his chemistry teacher before first period or talking with his Advanced Placement biology teacher about diatoms.
He certainly doesn’t remember the second his heart stopped, causing him to fall off his lab stool and lose consciousness. Or the frantic minutes after, when teachers, students and staff did all they could to revive the quiet, studious teen who later learned he had arrhythmia.
So on Wednesday, during a tearful but joyous welcome-back reception at Homestead, faculty, staff and doctors helped Chintapalli fill in the blanks. As they spoke in turn about the role they played that morning, Chintapalli, who was back in school Tuesday, nodded his head and smiled.
About 8:15 a.m. that Thursday, moments after talking with Chintapalli, biology teacher Bekki Vail heard him fall to the floor. She ran to see what had happened and found him unconscious, but making irregular gasps for air, known as agonal breathing. Two students rushed to the clinic and alerted school nurse Maria Lund, who ran to the room and started giving Chintapalli chest compressions in front of a crowd of students. Time seemed to slip away as Lund kept pushing, unable to get Chintapalli to begin breathing.
“I could see his color was getting bad,” Lund said.
Nurse Beth Quigley was the second responder to arrive. She worked with Lund, giving Chintapalli mouth-to-mouth to no avail. Vail called 911, and Lund radioed for an automated external defibrillator. A custodian heard the call, grabbed the device near the clinic and ran upstairs to give it to Lund.
By that time, Assistant Principal Steve Lake had arrived on the scene. He never had felt so helpless, he said, as he watched Lund put the defibrillator on Chintapalli’s chest.
Chintapalli’s heart wasn’t beating, and the defibrillator gave directions to shock. Lund did so, twice, establishing a heartbeat.
More staff members arrived to help carry Chintapalli down the stairs; others contacted his mother. By the time an ambulance pulled away, at least 20 Southwest Allen County Schools employees had played some role in the emergency response.
Chintapalli’s doctors said at the reception that the school nurses did everything they could to save Chintapalli’s life and that their actions likely kept him alive and prevented serious brain damage.
Quigley, who has been a nurse for seven years, said she had never experienced a similar event and thought this might have been the first emergency of its kind at Homestead.
Chintapalli’s mother, Lakshmi, encouraged officials to organize the reception so she could officially thank the people who helped her son. She handed Principal Rick Smith a letter she wrote for the occasion, and as he read it, a few in the room became teary-eyed.
“You were there when Chintapalli needed him, and you did everything in a very timely manner,” Smith read. “Abi is alive because of you.”
Chintapalli said he couldn’t thank everyone enough for their response and called the staff’s reaction time “astounding.”
During his two weeks in the hospital, doctors diagnosed him with arrhythmia, an irregular heartbeat, and put a defibrillator in his heart. He was also given drugs he thinks caused his memory loss.
Chintapalli said he was touched by the support he received in the hospital and was happy to be back in school.
“I lost 8 to 10 pounds when I was in the hospital,” he said. “But I think I gained it all back yesterday. We had lots of parties, lots of food.”
