Local heroes honoured for act of bravery in moment of distress

A Hoërskool Roodepoort learner and teacher performed CPR on a Grade Eight learner after she collapsed during their Grade Eight camp in Brits, ultimately saving her life.

For their act of bravery, teacher Sandrie de Beer and matriculant Kayla Punshon were each awarded on February 6 by Francois Redelinghuys and Warren Louw from Private Disaster Management.

Warren explained after interest in first-aid was shown by some learners last year, they had a first-aid course for 50 learners where they taught them about firefighting, health and safety. These children then work at the sporting events using their knowledge.

Kayla claimed that the day before the incident, she was admitted to the hospital for anaphylactic shock and later discharged and was supposed to be in bed when she learnt that one of the girls had collapsed.

She left her sickbed and rushed to the learner’s aid who had trouble breathing. Kayla sent for Sandrie to come and assist and when she arrived, the learner’s temperature spiked and she fell into fever fits.

“I knew something was wrong the second they called for me. When I arrived I was pretty relieved the person who was with the girl was Kayla and also mad, because why wasn’t she [Kayla] in bed where I left her?” laughed Sandrie.

“You could feel how her [the learner’s] body temperature heated up through her clothing, she was really warm and then started having fever convulsions,” said Sandrie.

Sandrie informed their bus driver they were going to the hospital again and while waiting, both the girl’s pulse and breathing stopped. She explained Kayla did two chest compressions and her pulse came back, really softly, but it was there and she started breathing again. Halfway to the hospital, however, it stopped again and they administered five extra compression rounds with extra mouth-to-mouth compressions until they reached the hospital.

She noted she checked with Kayla if she would be alright to go with them to the hospital to which Kayla replied, ‘I’ve come this far’ and refused to leave.

Kayla said, “I was in pain, but I realised even though I’m in pain, I have medication, I can see to myself afterwards. For now, the focus is on the patient, she’s not breathing properly, and her heart is not beating on its own. She needs help. See to her first and then to myself once she’s is getting help at the hospital from qualified people.”

She explained as a prefect, the Grade Eights are like her children, even if they irritate the living daylights out of her sometimes.

Warren added, “Under normal circumstances, an ambulance would be there in 15 minutes. In their circumstances there was no ambulance, they were in Brits and it is already stressful for a person to phone an ambulance, but in their situation, they had to take the child to the hospital themselves, which is not easy to do as a first aider, because you usually stress like crazy. So from our side, we’re very proud.”

As part of the award, these two heroes received already paid-for courses to continue their good work.

“They kept their cool,” added Francois to which Sandrie replied, just until they got to the hospital, then she broke down.

The Grade Eight learner is doing well and was discharged and is back at school again.