Nebraska Personal Trainers Revive Heart Attack Victim

Personal trainers Jeremy Hinrichs and Sarah Negus revived an Omaha man who suffered a heart attack Monday morning at Lakeside Wellness Center.

The man, believed to be in his mid-60s, collapsed in the locker room about 7:45 a.m. The staff revived him with an automated external defibrillator before he was taken by ambulance to nearby Lakeside Hospital.

Hinrichs, Negus and Carol Eberly, the wellness center's program manager, responded to the emergency.

Eberly said the man "was face down, bleeding. . . . We assumed he had hit his head when he fell."

The staff rolled the man onto his back and applied the AED pads to his torso to check his vital signs.

"It said he needed a shock, and we shocked him," Hinrichs said.

"It's always scary to arrive on something like that," Negus said. "We know when it's Code Blue that it's life-threatening. In this case, everything worked out great."

That pleased John Dias, director of the facility near 168th Street and West Center Road.

"This is a procedure we practice and have specific duties for specific staff," Dias said. "We have a pretty detailed procedure, and I'm proud of the way they followed it."

No further information was available on the man's condition.

It was the first time Hinrichs and Negus had to use the AED to revive someone.

"We've utilized the AED before, but we never had to apply the shock before," Hinrichs said.

"Everything worked like we'd planned for," Dias said. "We have an older clientele, and they have higher risk factors. So that's why we try to be prepared for medical emergencies in general.

"We literally had a guy who was unconscious and unresponsive," Dias added, "and he went out of here responsive and conscious."

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