Excerpts from the DailyHerald.com:
Jadale Mitchell has a standing invitation from Mount Prospect firefighters to stop by the station. Firefighters even offered the irresistible enticement of station house cooking to encourage the 13-year-old to drop by.
Jadale, an eighth-grader at Holmes Junior High, first met the firefighters under very different circumstances in September. That’s when the teen who lives with a genetic mutation in his heart suffered cardiac arrest shortly after arriving home from school, and his friends andfirst respondersfirefighters teamed to save his life.“I was playing with my friends, and my heart stopped,” Jadale said, recalling the Sept. 26 episode as he and firefighters reunited Tuesday night at Mount Prospect village hall.
A friend called 911 and performed CPR until
first respondersfirefighters arrived. It took seven minutes to revive him.
He was airlifted to Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, where he underwent surgery involving cutting a nerve to reduce the flow of adrenaline. He spent the next three weeks in the hospital recovering, some of it in an induced coma.
Now showing no signs of impairment, Jadale appeared before the village board Tuesday to thank thefirst respondersfirefighters who helped save him and watch as five were honored for their actions.
Lt. Mike Ghawaly and firefighter/paramedics Scott Slaasted, Phil Ellenbecker, Craig Rodewald, and Jon Schram received the Zoll Clinical Save Award for their efforts.