Quick action by school staff saves girl in cardiac arrest

SPRING LAKE, Mich. (WOOD) — Is your school prepared for a cardiac emergency? The staff at Jeffers Elementary School knew exactly what do.

On March 11, Paul Baranowski dropped his 8-year-old daughter off at school.

“I walked her up, and then gave her a kiss on the forehead and said I’ll see you later,” he said.

Minutes later, his phone rang.

“When I got the call like it just was, ‘Tinley is down,’” he said.

“I knew it wasn’t good,” said Nina Baranowski, Tinley’s mother.

Tinley was rushed to the hospital, where her parents found out she went into cardiac arrest.

“And when you’re around that corner as a parent, you see a room just filled with doctors and specialists, hoping it’s not your kid, but you know it’s probably your kid, it’s just really hard, because it’s very serious, trying to figure out what’s going on,” said Nina Baranowski.

The last time Tinley went into cardiac arrest, she was only a year old. She was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect. But mom and dad said she hasn’t had any major problems since then.

“Nothing short of a miracle that it happened when it did, where it did,” said Paul Baranowski.

Just four weeks earlier, the principal at Jeffers Elementary in Spring Lake started a life-saving conversation.

“She started talking to the school nurse, she talked to the bus driver, she talked to the whole staff, anybody who had eyes or contact with Tinley knew what to do if something happened,” said Paul Baranowski.

One week before Tinley collapsed, staff members went through training.

“They immediately turned her over, she started turning blue, they called 911, and I think Coach L grabbed an AED, shocked her once and said she came right back. They said it was probably like 1-2 minutes, under a minute before they got the AED on her, which is incredible,” said Baranowski.

Project Adam is a program that promotes Heart Safe Schools.

The staff there knows about six school-related cardiac arrests this year in Michigan. Three involved students and three involved adults. Five happened on school property and one happened at an off-site school event.

Michigan House Bills 5527 and 5528 would require all public schools and athletic events to have a cardiac emergency response plan in place including AED access and training for staff and coaches.

“What the bills can do is really encourage the schools to really consider those criteria and make it more likely there can be a consistent, reliable response to emergencies,” said Gwen Fosse, clinical outreach specialist, project ADAM Michigan Coordinator.

Tinley spent two weeks in the hospital. She came home Sunday and is starting to feel better.

“We don’t know why it happened, it could or could not happen again in the future, that’s kind of why we landed at like, ‘Hey we have to put in this internal defibrillator, like just for a piece of mind,’” said Paul Baranowski.

That will monitor her heart rhythm and detect anything abnormal.

“She had angels watching over her, and there’s no explanation, to have that response so quickly. There’s nothing that I can ever say or give, ever express how thankful I am for the staff,” said Paul Baranowski.

“I’m just grateful she’s still here, she has another chance.” Said Nina Baranowski.

Those two bills passed in the House and now move to the Senate.

As for Tinley, she has about two more weeks at home before she returns to school. When they go back to the doctor, her family hopes to learn more and look at data from her monitor.

A GoFundMe has been set up to support the Baranowski family.

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