Dispatcher

helps save

life in Paris
By Jim Smedley
Staff Writer

PARIS – “Tilt the head back, pinch the nose, take two deep breaths and blow into her mouth,” dispatcher Tony Gilbert told Charles “Jim” Swift.

A minute before receiving those instructions, Swift had felt helpless. Nancy Spencer, his love, his significant other for 22 years, wasn’t breathing.

He had tried to breathe into her a couple of times. Nothing happened. He called 911.

Radio Communication Center dispatcher Gilbert answered.

Gilbert grabbed an emergency medical dispatch card that outlines procedures for handling medical emergencies.

His first instruction: Identify the emergency. Was the woman breathing or not?

“Put your face near hers, your ear near her mouth,” Gilbert said. “Can you see her chest rise?”

Swift, 52, put the telephone down and ran 20 feet between the living room and the bedroom to check.

While Swift was gone, Gilbert told dispatcher Keith Tilsley to send Buckfield Rescue Service to the Swift/Spencer home in Buckfield.

‘I had to explain’

“She’s not breathing,” Swift reported to Gilbert.

“You have to give her CPR,” Gilbert said.

“I don’t know how,” Swift said.

Gilbert gave him the instructions for the rescue effort.

Swift put again down the telephone and ran to the bedroom.

“I had to explain where to put the hands, to do compressions 15 times, blow again – twice – do more compressions and come back to me. Come back to the phone for more directions,” Gilbert said.

Swift said he did not remember a lot of detail about what happened that morning on Aug. 23. He does remember that his adrenaline was pumping, and his mind was racing as fast as it ever had.

“She’s breathing!” was the next thing Gilbert heard on the telephone. “She’s breathing!”

“Are you sure?” Gilbert asked. “Did you see her chest rise?”

“Yep,” Swift said. “She’s talking to me.”

‘He was patient’

“I was surprised,” Gilbert admitted. This was the third time in his four years as a dispatcher that he had a life-death situation in which someone needed CPR. The first two didn’t work out.

“This never happened before,” Gilbert said. “I thought it might just be air escaping.”

Spencer’s eyes opened. She gasped for air and then asked Swift what had happened.

Swift felt relieved.

“There were a million thoughts going through my mind – What am I going to do without her if this doesn’t work?” Swift said. “There was a lot of grief going on. Then she opened her eyes and a big feeling of relief sweeps over me.

“There was a flood of emotions – happiness,” he said.

“What a professional,” Swift said about Gilbert.

“That man knew there was a family in trouble. If it hadn’t been for his calmness, I would have been in trouble. He had to explain himself several times,” he said. “He was patient and he really got us through it.”

Spencer recalls nothing of the incident.

“All I remember is going to bed that night and waking up in the ambulance,” Spencer said.

Spencer said she awoke at 2 a.m. to soothe Kyle, their grandson, who was having a bad dream and hollering for her. She went to bed shortly after comforting him.

‘I was dead’

“Jim said he heard a couple of noises come out of me,” Spencer said. “We’ve been together 22 years, and I think Jim and I are so in sync together he knew something was wrong.”

She pictured the few frenzied minutes when Swift was trying to revive her – him running up and down the hallway, frantic, sweating, trying to save her while trying to keep Kyle calm.

“My heart stopped. I was dead, no breath, no nothing,” Spencer said. “Thank God, Tony was there to talk Jim through it.”

Spencer said that since the incident she has had blood tests, electrocardiograms and magnetic resonance images done.

“They think it was a stroke,” she said. “But I don’t have any damage from it.”

Swift and Spencer sent Gilbert a letter. It read: “We as a family, as well as others in the Oxford Hills area, are very fortunate to have such professionals dedicating themselves at all hours of the day and night to our well-being. You really came through for us. God bless you.”

Gilbert said he appreciates their thoughtfulness.

He’d also received a thank you card a year or so ago, when he and other dispatchers helped a woman on the telephone whose home and business was being burglarized.

Judy Knight, communications supervisor, praised his work.

“I felt really good,” Gilbert said. “I hung up the phone and felt good that the guy said thanks. He couldn’t believe we brought her back.”

Gilbert said he didn’t have much time to reflect on the event that night.

Five minutes later, he had another call.

jsmedley@sunjournal.com

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