SRO saves Jeffersonville middle school student who suffered cardiac arrest

A story of school staff in Jeffersonville trained and ready to save a student’s life after his heart stopped. Officers, doctors and the young boy’s father say without that quick thinking, this rare medical emergency could have ended in tragedy.

“I thought I was waking up for school or something. Then I realized, I’m not at home. I’m in a hospital,” Brendan Sullivan said.

Confused and connected to IV drips, but young Brendan Sullivan is alive.

“You can’t say ‘thank you’ enough for someone to save your child,” Brendan’s father, Steven Sullivan, said.

Steve Sullivan feared he’d lost Brendan by the time paramedics brought him to Norton Children’s Hospital downtown last Wednesday.

The cause of this potentially deadly condition was something Sullivan says he’d never heard of before, even as he knew Brendan suffers from asthma.

“It was a bubble on the outside of his lung, it collapsed his lung, made him go into cardiac arrest. He dropped dead,” Sullivan said.

Norton physician Aaron Calhoun says this condition, pneumothorax, is a rare but potential complication of asthma.

“A situation like this, where you have someone whose heart stops, where the heart can’t pump blood at all, is an emergency situation that has to be treated immediately, if the best outcomes are going to be obtained,” Dr. Calhoun said.

Jeffersonville police tell us that as School Resource Officer Buckner checked the call from Parkview Middle School, he saw Brendan collapse.

In seconds, the Sullivans say the SRO, a PE teacher and several staff members worked together to give Brendan CPR.

“No one walks down the hallway in school, or anywhere else, excepting somebody to have a cardiac arrest, so you have to be ready to jump in at a moment’s notice and do that CRP as best as you can,” Calhoun said.

Within 3-and-a-half minutes of Brendan’s fall, more than a dozen JPD officers got to Parkview to give the staff more medical supplies.

As Brendan recovers, he and dad hope he gets back to school, video games and that others might pick up a life-saving skill like CPR.

“I think everyone needs to learn the basics of it, how they professionally did that,” he said.

Brendan will undergo some physical therapy.

Steve Sullivan says he will now advocate for any parents of kids with asthma to consider talking to doctors about greater risks.

Dr. Calhoun says this case is also a reminder to have medications close by that can prevent emergencies.