Coaches save Modesto student in team CPR effort

La Loma Junior High coaches all routinely certify in CPR, but it was a 13-year-old student with an unknown heart condition that put them to the test.

Emilio Jimenez finished running a lap in his seventh-period P.E. class Aug. 24 when he collapsed face first on the blacktop.

Physical education teacher Beth Kanaly said she knew immediately the no-hands plant was no ordinary fall. She ran to his side and was unable to find a pulse.

She started cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Fellow teachers Ian McBay and Tom Nelson radioed the office for an ambulance, organized three P.E. groups of upset classmates and traded off CPR cycles until paramedics arrived.

"The kids were great. I said leave a space, and they lined up," Kanaly said Tuesday. One of the students kept passers-by heading to other classes out of the way.

A friend of Emilio's whipped off his shirt and tossed it to Kanaly so she could wipe blood off the scrapes and check for injuries.

"It was extremely intense," she said, estimating that Modesto firefighters arrived within two minutes.

Kanaly said she renewed her first aid and CPR certification two weeks before. "It was my first experience (using it), and I hope it's the last," she said.

Emilio was taken to a local hospital, then transferred to a Fresno hospital, then to Stanford University Medical Center in Palo Alto, where doctors diagnosed his underlying heart condition.

He was back at school this week, his arm still bandaged for asphalt burns. Emilio said he'll have heart surgery next month at Stanford, then should be back in P.E. class in a month or so. But he won't get to play his favorite sport: flag football.

He said he doesn't remember anything about running or falling, just waking up in the hospital a week later.

La Loma Principal Ronna Rutishauser said the timing was probably for the best. "If it had to happen, that it happened in front of three people with CPR training was really a good thing," she said.

Bee education reporter Nan Austin can be reached at naustin@modbee.com or (209) 578-2339.