This student watched his friend die. He says schools need to do better

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Two years ago, Tobias Zhang’s best friend collapsed in the middle of Grade 9 basketball tryouts.

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The 14-year-old student’s heart had stopped beating.

And their school was not equipped with the one medical device that might have saved his life: an automated external defibrillator or AED.

“I witnessed my friend die from a cardiac arrest,” said Tobias, who is haunted by his friend’s medical emergency in 2022.

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The tragedy devastated the victim’s family and drove his distraught friends to push for Vancouver schools to have automated external defibrillators, or AEDs — the best tool to reverse cardiac arrests.

Tobias and his Grade 11 classmates from Point Grey Secondary recently took their fight to the Vancouver school district, and he hopes school trustees will finally take action.

It’s been two years since he saw his friend walk out of the school gym to get a drink on Nov. 4, 2022.

“Once he went out to get water, he didn’t come back for a few minutes,” recalled Tobias, now 16.

“Another student came in and was shouting, ‘Somebody help! There’s someone who collapsed near the water fountain!’ So I sprinted over there, and then I found the body of my friend. His skin was turning purple from the lack of oxygen in his blood.”

Tobias had spent his youth playing video games and riding bikes with the boy who was now unconscious, making groaning noises as he gasped for air.

A parent basketball coach started CPR, and someone called 911. “It was really scary,” Tobias said.

The 911 operator asked if the school had an AED, an easy-to-use, portable device that can detect an abnormal heart rhythm and then send an electric shock to restart the heart.

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The high school did not have one, so several students ran to the nearest pharmacy, 600 metres away.

An ambulance arrived before the students could return, but by then it was too late. Paramedics worked for about 10 minutes but could not revive the teen, whose name is being withheld at the request of his family.

Tobias can’t shake the memory of the anguished sobs from his friend’s father, a man shattered by the unexpected death of his son.

While many school districts in Metro Vancouver have installed AEDs in their secondary schools, Vancouver has not. So Tobias founded the Students for AEDs group, which includes eight Grade 11 students.

The group has garnered a growing list of high-profile backers, including Harjit Sajjan, a Vancouver South MP and federal cabinet minister, Vancouver city Coun. Lisa Dominato, and school trustee Christopher Richardson, who all attended one of the group’s fundraising events in October.

And the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation, in a letter of support, has asked the school district to “reconsider its position on AEDs in school settings after the preventable death of a Grade 9 student.”

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Using an AED, combined with CPR rescue breathing, can increase the likelihood of surviving a cardiac arrest by as much as 75 per cent, according to both the foundation and other medical research.

‘I’ll never get that moment out of my mind’

It’s a no-brainer that schools should have these devices, said Dr. Sanjiv Gandhi, the former head of pediatric cardiology at B.C. Children’s Hospital. “I’ve seen many, many kids resuscitated in the field with AEDs, and then they completely recover.”

Teacher Wendy Swain urged the board in 2018 to put the devices in schools, after she frantically performed CPR to keep a student alive when the 12-year-old had a cardiac arrest inside a Vancouver school.

“It was the most horrifying time of my life,” said Swain, who is renewing her call for change. “I’ll never get that moment out of my mind.”

Tobias’s Students for AEDs group has launched a GoFundMe campaign, sold doughnuts and fundraised through the Pure Bread bakery, raising several thousand dollars to buy devices for Vancouver schools. They tried to give their first purchase of a $1,500 AED to Point Grey Secondary, but their principal said the donation couldn’t be accepted because of school district policies.

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The Vancouver school district said it follows the advice of the provincial health officer and Vancouver Coastal Health Authority: It has AEDs in schools with students who may need the device, and there are fewer than 10 of those in the large district with nearly 110 schools, a spokeswoman said.

Putting the devices in more Vancouver schools is under review.

“Like any specialized device or medical intervention, a lot of factors must be considered — training, maintenance, inspection, location for access and many other factors that ensure the devices are effective,” the spokeswoman said in an email.

Undeterred by the district’s stance, Tobias and two classmates, Mireille Stausgaard and Disha Chatrath, spoke to trustees at a public meeting last week, explaining they want an AED in their school “to protect each other” as well as adults in the building, which includes teachers, parents and community members.

“We are missing opportunities to save lives,” Chatrath told the trustees.

“Our neighbouring school districts — Surrey, Burnaby, West Vancouver, North Vancouver and, most recently, Richmond — have made a different choice under the same provincial health recommendations that we are under. They have committed to AED funding.”

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Why are Vancouver students, she asked, “any less worthy of protection?”

The group of students handed trustees more than 50 letters of support. One was signed by two teachers who had taught the Point Grey student who died in 2022 in Grades 5 and 6, describing him as “kind, focused and athletic.” Another letter was signed by more than 80 local doctors.

Trustee Jennifer Ready acknowledged the AEDs are “a long time request” for the board, and invited the students to return next year during budget discussions. “I think what you highlighted for me is that the choice is clear,” she said.

Other trustees asked the students about the training and costs required for the devices. VSB chair Victoria Jung said secondary school staff are “exploring” whether to put these devices in their buildings, but she did not provide further details.

Several other school districts have AEDs

Other districts have acted with more urgency.

AEDs were installed in every Surrey high school in 2019, which overjoyed mother Esmeralda Gomez, who had launched a petition calling for that change after her 14-year-old son Alex had a cardiac arrest at a Surrey pool. He was revived by lifeguards with access to an AED, and the mother of four argued the same life-saving tools should be in schools.

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Delta put AEDs in secondary schools in 2015, New Westminster installed them in all schools in 2018, and Coquitlam has had them in all district buildings for several years.

The Richmond school district recently approved spending $180,000 to buy one or two AEDs for each elementary school, depending on their size, and three for each high school.

Swain, the former Vancouver teacher who saved her student in 2017, now teaches in Richmond and is thrilled with her new board’s decision.

She noted that witnesses to a cardiac arrest can use the free PulsePoint app to find the location of the closet AED. If the devices were positioned on external walls of schools, it would put them in the centre of most communities, she argued.

“They’re in car dealerships. Why wouldn’t they be in schools?”

When Swain’s 12-year-old student lost consciousness, she started CPR but was terrified when the 911 operator asked if there was an AED nearby — because the answer was no.

“You’re so at a loss because I need this tool to save this person’s life.”

Within 10 minutes, paramedics arrived and successfully restarted the heart of the student, who made a full recovery.

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Gandhi, the cardiologist, offered in 2018 to buy an AED for Swain’s school, but she said the Vancouver district wouldn’t accept it because of cost and liability.

“I was shocked and appalled that they would say no, because other school districts already had them,” said Swain, who received an award from the ambulance service for her heroic efforts to save her student.

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Swain’s experience wasn’t the first emergency in a Vancouver school when an AED could have helped a child. In 2009, a 10-year-old student at Henry Hudson elementary had a cardiac arrest, and the district reached a $1.7-million settlement with her family because the girl suffered brain damage due to oxygen deprivation by the time paramedics revived her.

In North Vancouver, a student with a heart condition reportedly died at Argyle Secondary two decades ago. Since then, AEDs have been installed in all secondary schools, as well as in three district buildings, including the school board office.

More recently, a North Vancouver woman lobbied to expand AEDs to local elementary schools, after her father had a cardiac arrest while walking his granddaughter to Dorothy Lynas elementary in June 2023. Bystanders were unable to save him.

“Our amazing neighbours were there to help (him), and started CPR right away and ran to the school to get an AED. We found out that our school does not have one,” Michelle Collens posted on X.

“(I) hope that we can save one more life by having this essential piece of equipment in all community hubs, including … Dorothy Lynas.”

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AEDs should be everywhere says cardiologist

The North Vancouver school district is looking into putting AEDs in all 25 elementary schools over the next several years, said board chair Linda Munro. That may start this academic year with about 10 schools, including Dorothy Lynas, which were prioritized for reasons such as the type of community groups that use the gyms.

“AEDs can have a positive impact on saving lives. So we have made this commitment to look at rolling them out over multiple years, and that way we can manage the cost,” Munro said.

Erin Fukushima’s daughter, who attends a secondary school in North Vancouver, has a medical condition that predisposes her to cardiac arrest.

The mother, who is also an emergency physician, is grateful her district has AEDs, and finds it “absolutely shocking” that they haven’t been installed in schools in Vancouver, where her niece is a student.

“These AEDs are expected to be standard in most public spaces. And I don’t really understand how a school board could think that they could be exempt from that,” she said.

“The margin of error for not being able to save a life should really be as low as possible.”

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There are organizations, such as the charitable ACT Foundation, with free AED programs for schools, Fukushima said. This is important, she added, because the teenage years can involve risk-taking and experimentation that predispose youth to needing emergency help.

The ER physician explained that as soon as a heart stops beating, there are literally only a few minutes to restart it to avoid brain damage and eventually death. The AED is perfect for a school setting because it requires zero medical training, she said

“They literally just have to open the case up, turn it on, and then it gives clear instructions to where to put the pads, and then tells the person what to do,” she said.

Without an AED nearby, the ER doctor said, “By the time you wait for (paramedics) to arrive, often it’s way too late.”

Having AEDs in schools not only benefits at-risk students like Fukushima’s daughter, but also kids like Tobias, who can be traumatized if they can’t help a collapsed classmate, she added.

“Seeing another child die beside you, even if you don’t know them well, is life changing. And if kids have skills to actually be able to change that, that’s also life changing,” she said.

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The letter of support signed by the 80 doctors said that while cardiac arrest is relatively rare in children, “schools should not be the exception” to the need for more AEDs in public buildings.

The doctors also disputed the Vancouver school district concerns, noting the devices are now less expensive and require minimal maintenance.

“Schools across North America have implemented AED programs successfully,” their letter says. “Recent research has indicated that AEDs in school would be a cost-effective public health intervention.”

Gandhi, the pediatric heart surgeon, was “flabbergasted” to learn in 2010 that there were no AEDs in West Vancouver schools, where his children were students. He successfully lobbied the school district to install them, and now hopes Vancouver will follow suit.

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“I just don’t know why they’re not everywhere in Metro Vancouver, and schools are a bare minimum,” he said.

“The fact that it requires student lobbying is an embarrassment. Honestly, these are life-saving, simple devices that are easy to operate and self explanatory.”

University of B.C. research shows having an AED outside a school so it’s accessible 24/7 could “dramatically increase the odds of survival” if a person in the neighbourhood had a cardiac arrest, says the letter of support from the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

“Schools are the very heart of our communities. Evidence shows CPR coupled with an AED could make the difference between life and death,” wrote Robyn Jones-Murrell, Heart and Stroke senior vice-president in Western Canada.

Tobias’s group hopes the provincial government will help fund AEDs for Vancouver secondary schools. But if Victoria refuses, then the students are determined to keep fundraising so they can purchase devices for each of the district’s 18 high schools.

In September, the province announced pilot projects in Prince George and two other communities that would make AEDs more widely available by placing them in public spaces such as airports, community centres, colleges and universities.

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The devices will be registered to the PulsePoint app, which can tell bystanders where to find an AED and notify people trained in CPR that a cardiac arrest is happening nearby.

Postmedia asked if elementary or high schools would be included in possible locations for the pilot projects. A Health Ministry spokesperson said the province, like Vancouver schools, follows the advice of the provincial health officer, who only recommends putting the AEDs in schools with children or staff with medical conditions.

After last week’s school board meeting concluded, some trustees told Tobias and his friends that they supported their efforts. Other trustees remained silent.

Tobias, though, hopes their presentation made a difference.

“I think it will help, because now we’ve made ourselves known among the people who can actually do something about this,” he said, adding the students will keep advocating for as long as it takes.

“The answer is not to just stop because they rejected you. The answer is always to keep fighting.”

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