West end high school teacher being praised for saving student’s life
Posted April 17, 2012 11:26 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A high school student in Toronto’s west end is lucky to be alive, thanks to the quick-thinking actions of his gym teacher who sprung into action when the boy went into cardiac arrest.
“He saved my life. I really need to see him in person and thank him for that. Thank you sir for saving my life,” said Ajethan Ramachandranathan from his hospital room.
The Weston Collegiate Institute student was in Jeff Crewe’s gym class Friday morning when his heart suddenly stopped beating.
“He just collapsed. There was nothing leading up to it, his eyes were rolled to the back of his head, and his tongue was out of his mouth and there was nothing. No emotion. No nothing,” said Crewe.
Ramachandranathan had an undiagnosed heart condition – oversized arteries. Luckily for him, his school has a mobile defibrillator unit.
“We got the defibrillator, we put the defibrillator on him, the machine said shock advised, we shocked him,” said Crewe.
“He started gasping again, that’s when we stopped chest compressions and we just kept talking to him, encouraging him to keep breathing. He’s a wonderful young man with a bright future and that’s all we could hope for, that he would be okay.”
Now Ramachandranathan is on the road to recovery. And thanks to Crewe, his future is brighter than ever.
“Now knowing I almost died, I’m going to try to live life even fuller…going to try to do things I’ve never done before,” Ramachandranathan said.
