Posted by Amy Donaldson / Desert News Feb 11, 2020 on Aug 4th 2020
Brighton cheerleader honored for saving classmate with CPR at basketball game
Brighton cheerleader honored for saving classmate with CPR at basketball game
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COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS — Kennady Kasteler didn’t want to be nosy. She worried about being rude.
But her decision to see why her friends were crying on an adjacent basketball court where she watched other friends play in a basketball game likely helped save the life of one of her classmates last month. Tuesday night before the Brighton High senior cheered for the school’s boys basketball team, she was honored with a special recognition from Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes.
“A lot of people are critical of the youth of this generation, but Kennady represents all that’s great,” Reyes said after honoring Kasteler in front of a packed gym at Brighton High. “She saw a need; she jumped in. ... Without Kennady Kasteler, Michael (le Fear) wouldn’t be alive today.”
The Brighton High School senior was watching a Junior Jazz game the night of Jan. 13 at Eastmont Middle School when someone came to the bleachers and asked if there were any medical professionals in the crowd. One woman said she was a nurse and followed the person to the other court, which was separated by a portable wall.
“I looked through a crack and saw a handful of my friends, and they were crying by the bleachers,” she said. “I walked over and saw Mike lying on the floor. I went over and gave my friend who was crying a hug, and she said, ‘We think he had a seizure.’”
Immediately Kasteler, who is a certified lifeguard, was alarmed.
“I said, ‘If he had a seizure, we need to get him on his side’,” she said, noting that she slid her jacket under his head. “But he was this really weird color, and so I asked, ‘Is he breathing?’”
A woman was on a cellphone talking to Mike’s mother. A nurse who had responded to a request for medical personnel just before Kasteler walked over where her friend lay on the basketball court, responded to her question.
“The nurse knelt by him, and she said, ‘He’s not breathing, and I can’t find a pulse’,” Kasteler said. “I told her, ‘You start the breath ventilations and I’ll start chest compressions.’ I ran around and started chest compressions.”
Four days after it happened, when Kasteler first spoke with the Deseret News, she couldn’t hold back her tears.
“I knew something really bad was going on,” she said, choking back emotion. “The color of his face was weird, and he was so limp.”
The 5-foot-2, 110-pound cheerleader counted out 30 chest compressions at a time, creating circulation for her classmate’s 6-foot-4 body. She heard people talking as she performed CPR — one woman counting compressions for her as her friends encouraged Mike to fight. She doesn’t know how long she did the work of Mike’s heart.
“I have no idea,” she said. “It was kind of a blur.”
Fatigue started to slow her compressions and another woman took over right as paramedics arrived.
“I could see color coming back in his face, but he wasn’t breathing on his own,” she said. “I could hear gurgling in his throat.”
When medical personnel asked anyone who wasn’t family to leave the area, she went into the hallway with friends and cried.
“I was fearful that the outcome was not going to be what I wanted it to be,” she said. “I cried a lot after because I was so scared. I knew that whatever happened, it was not good.”
Le Fear began breathing on his own two days after the episode, and Kasteler was able to visit, very briefly, for the first time the day after that. She and a friend were only able to tell him “Hi, and love you. Then we had to go.”
He was released six days later, but still faces surgery, can’t participate in sports, and wears a defibrillator. He showed his stitches after Tuesday’s special pre-game ceremony. He doesn’t remember much from that night.
“It was just another day, a normal day,” he said. “It was a sudden thing, just surprising, scary.”
He said when he awoke a couple of days later, he listened to the accounts from friends in an effort to piece it together. As he learned what his classmate did for him, he was filled with gratitude.
“I just appreciate her so much for doing it,” he said. “I think she deserves (the recognition from Reyes). ... I think everyone should know what she did.”
His mother, Cindy le Fear, said Kasteler’s actions have inspired her and Michael to take CPR and encourage others to do so. She said it’s also made her more willing to reach out and help someone in a crisis. In addition to Reyes, members of the Canyons School Board were also at the ceremony to honor Kasteler.
“(The recognition) is very well deserved,” she said. “She’s great. We’ve gotten to know her really well. We feel like we have a life-long friend.”