Freddy hernandez and Jacqueline R. Torres
As Gurbux Singh watched a badminton game one November afternoon, he had no idea it would become a monumental day for him and the people at Pierce who helped save his life.
The efforts to resuscitate Singh as he suffered a heart attack on the gym floor concluded with Michelle Roberts, a L.A. County Sheriff’s Department security officer using an automated external defibrillator, a portable electronic machine that treats cardiac arrest, to reestablish his heartbeat. Although all nine community colleges in the LACCD have a defibrillator, this was the first time any one of them was used.
“A quick response, that’s what saved my life,” Singh said in the Performing Arts Building Jan 11, when the Los Angeles Community College District Board of trustees awarded certificates of recognition to Roberts and others who helped keep Singh alive.
Gilbert King, a dentist participating in the game said that Singh just “fell on the floor.”
Mohammad Shariff, the Community Services assistant who teaches badminton and is a close friend of Singh, activated the emergency medical system that alerts the sheriff’s officers on campus. King and Shariff worked together to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to Singh, 62.
King, who was trained in CPR 10 years ago, described the procedure as, “very difficult to do in an instant,” but that it was “pretty cool to save somebody.”
While on patrol Roberts said she noticed the commotion and retrieved the defibrillator from the Sheriff’s Office, which is next to the gym.
“I was amazed the thing worked the way it did.” Roberts said. “I was scared to death, but one jolt and his pulse just kicked in.”
Singh, a badminton player of 40 years and titled champion in his native Burma and California, was taken to Northridge Hospital for further treatment.
“I went to visit him in the hospital the Monday after.” Roberts said. “I wanted him to know that we cared.”
After a six-bypass surgery and nine days in the hospital, Singh went home “happy to be alive. I think all gyms should have something like this.”
Interim President Tom Oliver said the defibrillator was “another example of the services we have to offer.”
Singh said it was badminton that saved his life because had he not been there at Shariff’s request, he might not have gotten the help he received.