JMU student bouncing back from cardiac arrest
Posted on January 10, 2008
Burke Arnold is back. He just may not always remember it.
On Tuesday he attended his first class since suffering cardiac arrest nearly a year ago. Arnold, 22, was a junior finance major when his heart stopped during a pick up basketball game at UREC on Feb. 26, 2007. He was without oxygen for approximately 20 minutes resulting in a brain injury and short term memory loss.
“I can remember my high school girlfriend’s phone number,” Arnold said, but not what he had for lunch yesterday.
Burke was running down the court eleven months ago when he suddenly clutched his chest and collapsed, said UREC Director Eric Nickel. A student employee witnessed this and called then senior Asha Flemming who responded immediately and placed the emergency call to central operations.
Senior Jeremy Tipton was first on the scene.
“When I saw Burke lying there I was pretty nervous,” he said. “I knew it was not your typical situation that you would deal with as operations supervisors.”
Tipton brought the Automatic External Defibulator (AED) with him as he was trained to do on an emergency call. According to Nickel, the AED reads pulse and heart activity itself and determines when a shock is needed.
“It will only fire if it calls for a shock,” he said. “It’s pretty much foolproof in that way.”
Chris Jones, UREC professional staff, and Hilary Bride, graduate assistant for aquatic safety, also responded to the emergency call and found Tipton hooking up the AED. They performed CPR, did chest compressions and monitored the AED.
Tipton said that Jones and Bride trained him in CPR.
“We worked well as a team,” he said. “Everything just flowed. We talked about that later, how we really were lucky to have all three of us there and how we worked so well together.”
Arnold’s heart restarted after three shocks and Jones, Bride and Tipton continued rescue breathing and maintained his weak pulse until EMS arrived and hooked him up to their own monitors. In the ambulance Arnold’s heart stopped again and EMS administered three more shocks.
“It’s probably the most traumatic thing that has ever happened at UREC,” Nickel said. UREC purchased the AED about five years ago.
“It was a big decision in terms of resources,” he said. “But a no brainer in terms of quality of care.”
Nickel said national statistics say there will be at least one cardiac-related emergency or fatality every 10 years in university gyms, however it’s usually an older faculty member.
Arnold spent ten days in Rockingham Memorial Hospital, the first three or four in a coma. He was then transferred to the University of Virginia Medical Center for two more weeks before moving to the Helpsouth, a rehabilitation facility in Charlottesville for two more weeks before going home to Massanutten with his parents, Gary and Karen. He began rehab at the Woodrow Wilson Rehabilitation Center in Fisherville, which lasted until August before begin Physical Therapy at Rockingham Wellness Center for two more months. Arnold also does fitness training at UREC to rebuild strength and endurance.
“What we’re trying to do is get him back to being more physically active,” said Holly Bailey, coordinator of fitness at UREC.
Bailey said his workouts aren’t much different than what the average student would do if they came into UREC. But, with his short term memory loss, Arnold has trainers work with him to help him remember how to set up the equipment and which settings to use.
“The biggest goal is to have him be able to do it on his own at some point,” Bailey said. Arnold is auditing Bailey’s fitness instructor training program class (FITP KIN 199). The hope is since he’s comfortable working with Bailey her class will be a way to ease him back into school.
“I’ve got my learn on,” Arnold joked when his mom asked him how his first class went. The Arnolds plan to see how Burke handles this class with his short term memory loss before deciding anything else.
“If you don’t push it sometimes you’ll never know,” Karen said.
Next week Arnold will be going to the JMU speech lab three days a week.
“[I’m] just working on getting better,” Arnold said.
Arnold also volunteers at UREC working in the equipment checkout, and doing fitness training. Karen said by keeping busy they’re trying to build his stamina.
“He doesn’t sleep like normal people,” Karen said. “Once he slept for 18 hours at a time.” Arnold said it is frustrating coping with the loss of short term memory, but said he’s feeling pretty good. His left leg and walking are not yet normal due to sciatic nerve damage, which Karen said is most likely from laying on his back for so long, but he speaks and jokes as usual.
So what’s the hardest part of his recovery right now?
“Probably waking up on time.”
