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Okanagan teachers honoured for saving student’s life

Two teachers at the Oliver secondary school are credited with likely saving the life of a student

A 13-year-old Oliver boy is likely alive today thanks to the training and quick actions of two South Okanagan Secondary School teachers.

Tuesday morning Steve Podomorow and Mike Russo are receiving the BC Emergency Health Services Vital Link Award for performing cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on student Dilshaan Dhaliwal, during a sudden cardiac arrest in the Oliver school gymnasium in late January.

Pomodorow and Russo were trained in CPR by paramedics at BC Emergency Health Services through a program with the Advanced Coronary Treatment (ACT) Foundation. The AED used in this save was also donated to the school by the ACT Foundation as part of this program.

“If it wasn’t for the AED machine and the teachers being able to jump in so quickly without any thinking and starting CPR and using the AED, I probably wouldn’t be alive right now,” said Dhaliwal in a news release about the award.

BC Emergency Health Services presents Vital Link Awards to honour the public in performing CPR during an emergency.

“These brave people represent our vital link to a patient’s successful survival. For every minute that passes without help, a person’s chance of surviving a cardiac arrest drops by approximately 10 per cent,” stated the release.

Related: Hundreds of students to get first-aid training

Dilshaan was transported to B.C Children’s Hospital in Vancouver and released less than a week later.

It was reportedly the first time in the six years that the AED at the school, which hangs on a wall just outside the gym, had been used.

Related: Penticton man leads charge to add defibrillators to city venues

School District 83 (North Okanagan Shuswap) last week joined a growing number of school districts in having AED’s in all of its schools.

Along with the teachers at the ceremony will be the BC Ambulance Service paramedics who were on scene that day along with the dispatcher.


 

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Dilshaan Dhaliwal during his stay in B.C. Children’s Hospital earlier this month. His life was likely saved by the quick actions and training of two Okanagan Secondary School teachers. (Submitted photo - Western News)