St John WA volunteer honoured for helping save grandfather’s life
Geraldton St John WA volunteer ambulance officer Jeannie Poletti never thought she would have to put her emergency responder skills into action on her own family member.
Jeannie, a local nurse and mum-of-two, was visiting her mother’s house when they received a desperate call from her grandmother, Sue Webb.
Her grandfather, Jim Webb, had collapsed at home and needed urgent help.
Thanks to her training as a volunteer, she didn’t hesitate to call an ambulance before driving straight to their house to help.
“When we got there, he was just sitting up in his chair. He didn’t have very good colour, and had a really poor respiratory effort,” Jeannie said.
“I just got him onto the floor and started CPR straight away.
“He was on oxygen at home, so we put that on, and then kept doing chest compressions until the ambulance arrived.”
Triple Zero (000) call taker, Tracy Kim, talked Jeannie through the process, keeping her calm and focused while the crews made their way to their house.
St John WA paramedic Stacey Burton and volunteer Karen Yardley arrived within 10 minutes and started treating Jim.
Back-up crew, paramedics Lorna Teakle and Dan Jocelyn, were right behind them.
“When we arrived, Jeannie was doing very good compressions, and he was lying flat in a nice open space, which made life easier for us,” Stacey said.
The team worked tirelessly on Jim for more than 30 minutes, applying CPR and delivering multiple shocks with a defibrillator.
“Amazingly, we shocked him 14 times between on scene and the hospital, because we kept losing his pulse,” Stacey said.
“By the time we got to hospital, we finally got him back.”
With only one in 10 people surviving out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, early CPR is vital to survival and recovery.
“It was amazing to see him again after witnessing his cardiac arrest the day before and thinking, ‘he can’t come back from this,’” Jeannie said.
“Even though we got there in under 10 minutes, Jeannie doing CPR for those minutes before we got there was critical to his amazing outcome,” Stacey said.
St John WA Clinical Development Coordinator, Amy Segers, was thrilled with Jim’s outcome and praised everyone involved.
“My role is clinical development of our paramedics here in Geraldton, and we’ve done a huge amount of work in getting our protocols perfect,” Amy said.
“Mr Webb surviving this event is an incredible moment for us as an organisation, for the community, obviously for him and his family, and for our staff as well.
“In a situation like this, the first thing you should do is call Triple Zero (000) – the call takers in comms are highly trained in walking you through everything you need to know.
“The best thing that you can do for yourself, your family and your community is to get yourself onto a first aid course or get involved with St John.”
Jim now has a defibrillator implanted into his chest, and life has slowly returned to normal for him and Sue, feeding the chickens at the family farm and spending time with their 11 grandchildren and 28 great-grandchildren.
Jeannie was recently honoured with a Certificate of Recognition from St John WA for helping the crews save Jim.
The paramedics and volunteers involved that day gathered with Jim, Sue and Jeannie in an emotional reunion.
“It is a magnificent thought that I am still here,” Jim said.
“I just want to say thank you and that doesn’t come lightly – it comes from deep down.
“They all obviously went above and beyond to bring me back and keep me here.”
Learn life-saving skills as a volunteer with St John WA.