First responders welcome Freiler student back after ordeal

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For her first day back at school in 3 weeks, Heather Freligh had a police escort, complete with sirens and a ride in the Tracy Police Bearcat vehicle, as she arrived at Freiler School to be greeted by a contingent of Tracy Police officers and South San Joaquin County Fire Authority firefighters.

Heather’s father, Derek Freligh, said that the Heather’s return to school on Monday morning wasn’t just a celebration of her surviving a near-fatal cardiac arrest while in class on Sept. 22, but also an acknowledgement that first responders doing their jobs save lives and bring people back to their homes, communities and the people they love.

“We all know what those days are like, and those days don’t always turn out great,” Freligh, an Alameda County Sheriff’s Department Deputy, told the crowd on Monday. “We have to stand next to family members and I actually was one of those family members that time, and it was hard to see. I knew to stay out of the way and I watched everybody work doing what they were doing, and I was praying and watching the good work be done.

“I can’t tell you how thankful we are as a family that everybody did their job that day. Their training kicked in. Everybody kept their composure, and we had a miracle turnout that doesn’t always happen,” he added. “It’s not something you ever want to have happen, but today is a great day and all we say is ‘Thank you,’ which isn’t enough words, but thank you to everybody for what you did.”

On hand for Monday’s event were the police and firefighters who responded to the scene, as well as the students and Freiler School staff who jumped into action when they saw that Heather was experiencing a medical crisis. Everybody from the students sitting next to her at the time to her teacher and school principal had a role in helping save Heather’s life in the moments before first responders arrived.

“I was sitting next to her and I hear this loud breathing, kind of like snoring, and I look over and Heather is sort of slumped over in her chair,” said her classmate Joey Russell. “After a couple of seconds, I didn’t know what was happening, she leaned over and hit her head a little bit on this projector stand that was right next to her, and then she fell out of her chair completely.”

He alerted their teacher, Alayna Evans, who came right over to see what was happening.

“We were actually in the middle of a test. She went down. The first thought when kids hit the floor, eighth graders, is they fell out of their seat or they’re playing around,” Evans said. “As soon as she hit the ground, Joey, who was sitting next to her, said ‘I think something’s wrong, seriously wrong.’”

“So I immediately got to her side, assessed the situation, we turned her onto her back and made sure everything was out of the way, and then I had a student call the office and two girls called 911 almost immediately, which I think was the best part of this situation, was how quickly they reacted.”

McKenna Adamo and Malyna Torres-Melton said that they and Heather are all close friends, and they acted next.

“After she fell out of her chair we heard her on the floor and her lips started turning blue,” Malyna said. “I couldn’t find my phone so I grabbed McKenna’s phone and called 911. As that was happening another student and the teacher were trying to check on her to flip her over so she could breathe.

“I was really nervous because I had never called 911 before and my hands were shaking and I had to give them as much detail as possible, and our location and what happened.”

McKenna added that there was no way anyone in the class could know what exactly had happened.

“It was really nerve-wracking. Everyone was scared. Everyone was nervous,” she said. “It was a hard time because none of us knew what was going to happen and none of us knew what was wrong, so we were just praying for her.”

Freiler School Principal Stephen Theall then arrived at the classroom. “I saw Heather on the ground. It wasn’t clear right away exactly what was taking place, but it was clear that what we were walking into was a really serious situation,” Theall said. “From there we wanted to make sure we got our students outside of the class as quickly as possible and had one of the students,

McKenna, hand over the cell phone to Ms. Evans. From there it was me, Ms. Evans and the 911 dispatcher working together to ultimately save Heather’s life.” Theall began CPR on Heather while Evans spoke with the dispatcher. Police, firefighters and an ambulance were on their way, and Theall said that he had no idea how much time elapsed before Tracy Police Officer Alex Contreras arrived to take over doing CPR.

“I know that Officer Contreras and the team got there as quickly as they possibly could. There were things we could do on campus to clear the way to make sure they could get here as quickly as possible,” Theall said.

Contreras is the school resource officer at West High, and was in the parking lot at West High when he heard the 911 dispatch. He was just over a half-mile from Freiler School, a straight drive along Lowell Avenue.

“I saw Mr. Theall doing CPR and I saw Heather laying on the floor. My job was to take over the chest compressions and work with fire,” he said, adding that he also lost track of the time between when he started CPR and fire department paramedics deployed the LUCAS device, which continued the chest compressions as the American Medical Response ambulance rushed Heather to the hospital.

Contreras said has done CPR before, including on infants, but never on a teenager.

“I have a 13-year-old son and a teenage daughter,” he said. “To be able to help and just do my job and rely on my training for a successful outcome like this, that’s all that matters. It’s the reason I became a police officer, for incidents like this.”

South San Joaquin County Fire Authority Capt. Trent Vick said that he and his crew, including Engineer Ray Gonzales and Firefighter Daniel Kopas, responded from the 11th Street station, first to a call of an unconscious student but the report was upgraded, informing them that the student had no pulse and was not breathing. CPR was in progress when they arrived.

“When you hear a call that is a 13-year-old child who is not breathing, and her heart’s not beating, it does something to you as a first responder. I’m sure we were a little bit quicker that day,” Vick said.

“We all have kids. When you hear that you’re like, ‘Nah, that can’t be. That doesn’t sound right,’ but when you get here and see with your own eyes that it was in fact true, it definitely leaves an imprint on your mind and heart.”

Vick said early CPR made the difference in saving Heather’s life.

“If the cardiac arrest is witnessed, early notification to 911, early CPR, early defibrillation, the sooner you do those things the better the chances of survival, along with age, it really helped in a positive outcome.”

Theall said he has never had to use CPR as part of his job, though school staff members are all trained to know how to do emergency chest compressions. Evans said that she too never expected to be called upon to perform life-saving measures on a student.

“We get trained in CPR and have those certifications and are ready to use them, but you never expect you’re going to have to,” she said. “As a second-year teacher I’m super glad I was trained on this, and to stay calm, and to breathe, and to assess the situation the best that everyone could. I think everyone really played a huge part in the success of this story.”

Heather said that she only remembers waking up in the hospital. She added that returning to see everyone on hand to welcome her back made a big impression on her.

“I’m just shocked to see everything, but I’m happy that I’m back, though,” she said. “It means a lot to have friends who care for me and support me.”

She’s well along the way toward recovery, and looks forward to playing basketball again with the Tracy Spartans team.

Her father counted off all of the things that happened that day – a span of about 20 minutes between the time Heather collapsed and then was in an ambulance on the way to the hospital -- and how people acted quickly and decisively at every step.

“It took everybody to do the right thing in the right moment at the right time in order to give my daughter a fighting chance. That fighting chance led to a series of things that saved her life,” he said. She wouldn’t have been here without everybody doing their job. For them to be here and everybody gathered together to make this a great glorious day, not only for her, but for them to see that their efforts saved somebody’s life today, for them to see her and be like, ‘Wow!’”

• Contact Bob Brownne at brownne@tracypress.com, or call 209-830-4227.