Fast action, defibrillator save a life.

Byline: Bill Bishop The Register-Guard

It's not in his job description, but Citizens Building operations engineer Mike Harbour knew he would probably help save a life someday because he had been trained to do it.

It happened Thursday, on Oak Street, after 82-year-old Fred McMahon suffered an apparent heart attack while driving.

Ironically, Harbour's own father, 89-year-old Merle Harbour, had died on Wednesday. Harbour went to work Thursday anyway, thinking it would be "therapeutic" for his mourning - little suspecting he would soon need his recent rescue training in the use of a defibrillator, a device that shocks a still heart back into action.

"We were doing all we could and we didn't get a pulse," Harbour recalls. "After the shock we had a pulse. It was a relief. It made a believer out of me."

The incident unfolded about 1:45 p.m., when Harbour smelled burning rubber and looked out from the building at 10th Avenue and Oak Street to see that McMahon's sedan had collided with the rear of a large sport utility vehicle.

Harbour looked inside and saw telltale signs of a heart attack - pinpoint pupils and ashen complexion. He also recognized the victim from McMahon's daily visits with fellow retirees at The Town Club on the building's ninth floor.

"I could see he was in bad shape," says Harbour, who pulled McMahon to the asphalt near the curb. A woman who identified herself as a trained emergency medical technician lent a hand while lobby attendant Carol Ellison fetched the Automated External Defibrillator that building management had purchased less than a year ago at the behest of a safety-conscious tenant.

Harbour and the EMT, whose identity could not be determined Friday, administered CPR with no effect.

Once connected to McMahon's chest, the defibrillator - in its electronic voice - advised the trio of rescuers to continue chest compressions and breathing into McMahon. Soon, however, the machine advised that a shock would be needed because there was no pulse.

The machine soon advised a second shock, which the rescuers administered after ensuring they were well clear of McMahon so they would not receive the high-voltage jolt.

This time Harbour detected a faint change in McMahon.

"I can't even say I heard a low moan; there was something there," he recalls.

By then a police officer had arrived and an ambulance crew was on the scene.

"It was a very short time, but it seemed to be an eternity," Harbour recalls. "By the time they got him in the ambulance, he was coming back."

Relatives of McMahon could not be reached, but a family acquaintance said McMahon's condition had improved considerably through the day Friday.

Harbour says the rescue really brought home the importance of first-aid training and the new defibrillator. He noted 29 people who work in the Citizens Building have been trained to use it.

"Because of this, we had a much better chance of him coming back. When this happens, you are so thankful," he says.

The rescue also provided Harbour with an unexpected dose of therapy for his own loss.

"I was on cloud nine. It was a real upper," he says.

CAPTION(S):

Mike Harbour successfully used a defibrillator Thursday after recently being trained.