Grocer uses CPR to save a shopper
It was just a normal working day when Shane White heard his name over the intercom, calling the Countdown produce manager to the beauty aisle.
Customer Ian Foreman had collapsed to the ground of the Spotswood, New Plymouth store.
‘‘I went down there pretty quickly, obviously not knowing what to expect. Ian was on the ground. There was a customer with him doing CPR, but he told me he didn’t really know what was going on so I stepped in, because I had the first aid training,’’ White recalls.
‘‘Everything I learned came rushing back. I just sort of went into auto pilot, the adrenaline kicks in and you do what you’ve got to do.’’
One of White’s colleagues had called 111 and put the operator on speaker phone.
White had been doing chest compressions for a ‘‘little while’’ when Foreman started breathing.
‘‘The operator on the other end told us the breathing wasn’t consistent enough, so we had to keep doing the chest compressions. It was good having been able to talk directly to the 111 operator though, and get that communication and have the timing of the compressions being, I guess, just communicated to me on the spot.’’
Eventually the paramedics arrived.
‘‘And a fire truck turned up as well, so a couple of fire fighters came to help get (Foreman) on the stretcher and they attached his defibrillator, got his heart going again and took him off to hospital.’’
White had a cup of coffee and went back to work.
‘‘I just got on with it really,’’ White says. ‘‘I didn’t really think much of it to be honest.’’
Sadly, Foreman, 78, died a week later, but White’s CPR skills gave him extra time with his family.
At the time, White didn’t know the man, but hoped he would be OK.
‘‘I was hoping they would be able to figure out who he was so his family could be contacted.’’
Foreman’s wife, Rhondda, later called the store and White was able to visit Foreman at Taranaki Base Hospital.
White says he finds it hard to explain how he felt.
‘‘I think it was it was good to have the opportunity to see him and see his family and they were hugely appreciative of what I’d done. It made me feel like I’d done something good.’’