Queens teacher saves seizure-stricken student by using CPR, defibrillator
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BY Ben ChapmanLisa ColangeloDenis Slattery
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Thursday, October 20, 2016, 10:03 PM
A quick-thinking Queens teacher saved a student’s life Thursday when the sixth-grader began having a seizure and stopped breathing.
Amy Spears, 44, a math teacher at Louis Armstrong Middle School in East Elmhurst, saw the girl collapse and start convulsing in the hallway outside her classroom. Then the teen stopped breathing.
“I started doing CPR immediately and called people to get help and call 911,” Spears told the Daily News. “Another teacher grabbed the machine.”
Spears, who has been a teacher for 21 years, gave the child one shock with a defibrillator before paramedics arrived.
The child was taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center.
Spears, who lives in Plainview, L.I., with her husband and two young children, was left shaken, but glad she had the training to handle the terrifying situation.
“I never thought in a million years I would have to do this or want to do it,” Spears said. “I’m so glad I was trained and I was able to hold it together enough to do what I did. Everyone worked together.”