Cooperstown News Bureau

COOPERSTOWN - The people who came to Barbara Green's aid when her heart stopped beating March 29 will be honored at the Cooperstown Fire Hall next Monday, May 5.

On the evening of March 29, Green, 60, of Fly Creek, was attending the annual American Legion birthday dinner at the Cooperstown Veterans Club. Just before 8:30 p.m., as Jeff Houghton, commander of the Clark F. Simmons Post 579, was giving out awards, she went into cardiac arrest.

Houghton and Carol Affourtit, a longtime, recently retired member of the Cooperstown Emergency Squad, rushed to give Green cardiopulmonary resuscitation, while the bartender, former squad member Faith Kelly, called 911 for help.

The 911 center dispatched Cooperstown police as well as the village's emergency squad. Patrolmen Bernard Wilfeard and John Congdon arrived within two minutes, according to those at the Veterans Club. They brought an automated external defibrillator.

Working together, police and rescue workers hooked the electrodes to Green and administered two electric shocks. After the second one, her heart re-started, and her skin, which had been turning blue, began to turn pink again.

When the emergency squad arrived, crew members administered advanced life support and took Green to Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown.

A few weeks later, Green is home.

"It took me a while to get out of the hospital, but I'm feeling better. I sleep a little less, and I'm up a little more every day," she said.

Green said she was very grateful to all those who've helped her, and she plans to attend the awards ceremony, which starts at 7 p.m.

Those who will receive plaques are Houghton, Affourtit, Kelly, Wilfeard and Congdon. Members of the crew who were on that call March 29 will receive commemorative pins, according to Carrie Carney, a lieutenant with the emergency squad.

Al Keck, the department's president, and Cooperstown Fire Chief Fred Lemister said the awards are deserved.

"That was the perfect execution of the chain of survival," Lemister said. When Green's friends administered CPR as soon as her heart stopped, and Wilfeard and Congdon arrived with an AED within a few minutes, her chance of survival rose dramatically, he said.

"Around the nation, we see survival rates of 5 percent in a situation like this, because time is not on your side when your heart stops," Lemister said.

"The lesson from this is that everyone should know CPR, and it's critical to get AEDs to people quickly," he said.

"What happened that night was the personification of everything we hope will go right," Lemister said, thanks to the trained people who sprang to help someone in need.

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