Son owes his life to CEMS Medical crews, others
April 20 started out as a regular day for my 14 year-old son, Vince Burke. He woke up, talked to me for a few minutes, ate breakfast and rode his bike to Coloma Junior High School. After school, he went to his track practice, where he is a member of the varsity team. This was supposed to be another typical day for him.

Coach Larry Jackson had the team run a 5-mile loop that afternoon, something Vince had done numerous times before. This time, Vince collapsed in the gravel parking lot of Fruit Acres.

Coach Jackson was riding a bike with the track team, saw Vince go down and immediately dialed 911 on his cell phone. There were two nurses in the immediate vicinity who also saw my son down and rushed to his side. They are Liz Rollins (emergency room nurse at Bronson Hospital) and Carrie O’Connor (who was visiting from Illinois).

An ambulance was driving back to the CEMS Medical headquarters and stopped to help, and then a second ambulance arrived. The EMS workers were Cassie Sikes, Amy Oosterlinck, Frank Delatorre, and Terry Greg Robinson also was at the scene.

Vince was in cardiac arrest and received medical attention within two minutes of collapsing. The cooperation of the nurses and MS workers saved his life. He was taken to Community Hospital in Watervliet, where another medical team worked on him and prepared him for his helicopter ride to Bronson Hospital.

Vince was in Bronson’s pediatrics intensive care unit for seven days. His cardiologists at Bronson were amazed at how well Vince was doing after experiencing an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. God’s hand was truly at work, having experienced medical implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD), a device will shock his heart into a normal rhythm the next time he had an incident.

Again, thanks to everyone for giving my son his life.

Carol Burke
Coloma