DURHAM — Just five years after losing both her mother and sister to heart failure, 20-year-old UNH student Andrea Karpinski went into cardiac arrest while working out at a Derry gym. She lost consciousness and stopped breathing for nine minutes before the Derry Fire Department arrived and shocked her out of arrest.
The gym had its own automated external defibrillator (AED), according to Karpinski, but in the chaos no one thought to use it. An AED is a portable device that can diagnose potentially life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias and stop them by jolting the patient with an electrical current.
Her terrifying experience led Karpinski on a three-year campaign to get AEDs installed at UNH sorority and fraternity houses and to train residents in their use. The campaign came to fruition last week when the Durham Fire Department announced it had ordered AEDs for two sorority houses at the university, including Karpinski's Alpha Xi Delta.
It was at a 2011 dinner to which Alpha Xi Delta invited some members of the Durham Fire Department that Karpinski shared her story with firefighter Dave Blatchford. She told him about her harrowing experience in the gym, and how her life had been changed by heart disease.
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John Huff/Staff photographer Durham Firefighter David Blatchford demonstrates how an AED (Automated External Defibrillator) works on a training dummy. Local 2253 Durham Professional Firefighters union participated in helping several sororities near the University of New Hampshire campus acquire the devices and learn how to use them.
Karpinski explained that when she was in the third grade her mother had a heart attack. Years later, she had a stroke that left her half-paralyzed and unable to speak. Then, when Karpinski was just 15, her mother died of a massive heart attack.
Three months later and still heartbroken over the loss of her mother, Karpinski was devastated when her 20-year-old sister, Cassandra, also died from sudden heart failure.
At the urging of Blatchford, Karpinski repeated the story to other Durham firefighters.
Capt. James Brown recalled, “There wasn't a dry eye in the whole place. We wanted to come up with something to help people like her. That was our motivation to move forward with this whole program.”
Local 2253 Durham Professional Firefighters union was motivated enough to help the sorority get an AED, but the initially encountered resistance from the housing authority that manages Alpha Xi Delta. Brown attributed that to misinformation about the AED.
“They thought it was a liability, and they were misinformed on what the AED can and can't do,” he said. He explained that the housing authority was scared the AED would be misused. Blatchford explained that couldn't happen because an AED won't work if it doesn't detect an irregular heart beat.
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John Huff/Staff photographer An AED (Automated External Defibrillator) that UNH sorority Alpha Xi Delta raised money for through a T-shirt fund-raising campaign. They hope to have AEDs placed throughout the university’s Greek System.
The firefighters' union continued campaigning for the AEDs even after Karpinski graduated last year. Meanwhile, Alpha Xi Delta started selling T-shirts around campus to raise money to buy an AED. They usually cost $1,300 to $1,600, but a discount made possible by the state dropped that to $872.
The T-shirts were a big success, and the sorority actually earned more than that.
“AZD made about $200 extra dollars,” said Blatchford. “I'd like them to pay it forward and give it to another Greek house that is trying to get an AED.”
He hopes that this continues until all Greek houses on campus have a defibrillator.
“I'm hoping to do one more push at the fraternities and sororities at the beginning of the next school year. My goal now is to get one at every Greek house on campus.”
Diana Chase, the housemother at Alpha Phi sorority, heard about Alpha Xi Delta's AED drive and decided to get one for Alpha Phi.
Blatchford said he expects Alpha Xi Delta's AED to arrive by the end of next week, at which time sorority members will be taught how to use the device and how to perform CPR. He recently called Karpinski to invite her to help them install the AED at the house.
“She kept saying she couldn't believe that we finally did it,” he said. “I told her 'Firemen don't go back on their word. We said we'd do this.' ”
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