Golden Valley honors Citizens for Saving a Life
A company festival on Halloween turned into a nightmare situation at Best Vendors on Highway 55 in Golden Valley when an employee stopped breathing. Coworkers used a newly installed AED and started CPR to save the woman’s life.
“All it takes is one,” says Phil Richard, president of Best Vendors. “Deb was the one so far. So we will continue to carry the torch and install more and more of these because it’s a game changer for us.”
Richard was on hand to watch Karen Kerwin, Ian Osbourne, and Barb Miller be honored at Tuesday night’s city council meeting. They saved Deborah Monzel’s life back in October by springing into action when Deb Monzel went into cardiac arrest.
“We were pleased that she kept saying get me out of here,” remembers Karen Kerwin, who was one of the honorees. “So we knew we had her back. She was yelling and we were happy to have her yelling.”
Since 2012, the Golden Valley Fire Department has trained more than five thousand people how to perform CPR and use an AED. They earned the title of Heart Safe Community in 2014. If you can do those two things after someone has a heart attack, the survival rate goes up 80 percent.
