Sixth-grader saved with school’s new AED

November 8, 2001

On a morning in late October, sixth-grade student Daniel Golden, 11, collapsed at the bottom of a staircase at the Monsignor McHugh School in Cresco, Pennsylvania. School nurse, Theresa O’Malley, and a crisis response team, rushed to his side with the school’s new automated external defibrillator (AED). Among the responders was Daniel’s mother, Karen Golden, who teaches seventh and eighth grades. After several shocks, Daniel’s heartbeat was restored and he was taken to Scranton Mercy Hospital, where he is recuperating. Daniel has a congenital heart defect and has previously undergone four open-heart surgeries.

The AED had been donated to the school less than two weeks earlier through the Gregory W. Moyer Defibrillator Fund, which received a matching grant from the J. Simpson Africa Lodge #628, Free and Accepted Masons. The fund was established in honor of Gregory Moyer whose death during a school basketball game last December inspired a movement to provide defibrillators to schools in Pennsylvania.