Jacqueline Del Campo doesn’t remember much from the day she died.
It was a warm Sunday in late October and she was in church when she started feeling ill. Thinking a breath of fresh air would help, she stepped outside.
Del Campo wasn’t dizzy. She didn’t feel lightheaded. But almost as soon as she spotted several church ushers, she could no longer breathe.
The 84-year-old motioned to Leo Hamilton, one of the ushers, and indicated that she was in trouble. He rushed over and sat next to her while several others − Tom Green, Mike Bailey and Ralph Paulus − dialed 911.
The next thing Del Campo knew, she was in the intensive care unit. There, she learned she had gone into cardiac arrest and had been clinically dead for 10 minutes before first responders brought her back to life.
On Tuesday, nearly five months after that harrowing day, Del Campo met the firefighters and paramedics who saved her life. Sitting beside her husband at St. Mary’s of the Assumption Church in Hockessin, Delaware, she also thanked the ushers, who had coincidentally finished a CPR training 10 days before Del Campo’s emergency.
She credited their quick thinking − and the fast response by first responders − in saving her life.
“People say, ‘It’s a miracle; it’s a miracle,'” Del Campo said Tuesday as she addressed the men who helped that day. “But I am not comfortable with that word ‘miracle.’ My life, I owe to you boys.”
A husband’s perspective
Francis Giofre didn’t initially think much when his wife walked outside. When Del Campo didn’t come back after a few minutes, however, he figured he should check on her.
By the time Giofre got outside, Hamilton was next to Del Campo. Frightened, Giofre watched his wife motion that she couldn’t breathe. But there was nothing for him to do except wait.
Within minutes, firefighters from Longwood Fire Company in Pennsylvania, who were covering for several Hockessin Fire Company members that day, were at the church. Giofre remembers them trying to give Del Campo oxygen.
When that didn’t work, they began CPR. Soon, New Castle County Paramedics arrived.
Giofre remembers the men cutting off his wife’s clothing to better perform chest compressions. Then, she was loaded into an ambulance and rushed to the hospital.
“It was very frightening,” Giofre said.
When Del Campo woke in the ICU the following day, she “seemed to be OK,” Giofre remembers. That, he said, was surprising.
Del Campo, too, was surprised when she woke. Her daughter and son-in-law, who live in South Carolina, were by her bedside. She had no idea that she’d been out for a day and wondered how they’d gotten to Delaware so quickly.
The impact of CPR
Del Campo is still amazed by what transpired that October day, a sentiment echoed by Lorrie Williams, who heads the New Castle County Paramedics’ “hands only” CPR trainings.
The two-hour class, she said, is not a certification and attendees aren’t taught to check for a pulse or initiate resuscitation breaths. Instead, they learn the hands-only aspect of CPR − chest compressions − and are taught how to jump into lifesaving situations.
“The goal is to get people not afraid to react, not afraid to jump in and help,” Williams said. “It’s perfect for those minutes before first responders arrive because those five minutes could mean life or death or permanent brain damage.”
Del Campo and her husband said they’re certainly thankful that their fellow congregants had been trained on how to help quickly. And while Del Campo doesn’t know if the timing of that training and what occurred that day was a miracle, she thinks there has to be some explanation for what happened.
“That’s been on my mind a lot,” she said. “There’s got to be a reason, and what if that’s because I have more to do on this Earth?”
Hughes can be reached at ihughes@delawareonline.com or on Twitter at @izzihughes_
