Quick action saves life Quick action saves life (January 30, 2004)

School employee helps coworker
by Teresa C. Brown

Quick thinking and gut reactions guided Hart Middle School custodian Stacey Leal as she helped to save the life of coworker Danny DeLeon last month when DeLeon, 40, suffered a brain aneurysm while on the job.

"I had him moving garbage cans into the gym," Leal said. It had been raining on that Friday, Dec. 5, and, at about 9 a.m., the custodians were preparing for lunch to be held indoors that day.

"About 20 minutes passed by and I didn't see him," Leal said. Always concerned for their welfare, Leal said she likes to keep in close communication with her coworkers.

As she walked by the main custodian room, she noticed the door was standing open. "When I came in, he was sitting in a chair with both hands holding his head and sweating profusely," she said.

She knew something was wrong, but neither she nor DeLeon knew what. DeLeon told her he felt like he was getting sick and his "head was going to explode."

DeLeon sat down on some mats lying outside the room. There he asked Leal to call 9-1-1.

"I was scared," Leal said. "I thought it would just pass, but when he told me to call 9-1-1, I just reacted."

Without a second thought, Leal ran the 100-some feet to the main office and called out for someone to call for an ambulance. Although Leal told DeLeon to stay put on the mats, he followed her into the main office.

In the office, Vice Principal Jenise Falk said, school employees rallied to help DeLeon.

"They took him in the health room and called 9-1-1. Our principal, Steve Maher, was a medic in the Navy and kept taking his pulse." Both Maher and Leal kept reassuring DeLeon he would be all right. "In reality, his pulse was racing too fast," Falk said.

"Everything we did for him, nothing was working," Leal recalled.

When paramedics arrived, Leal continued to stay by DeLeon for support. One of the last things DeLeon said to her before the paramedics whisked him away was that he did not want to lose his job, and he did not want to die, Leal said. She told him neither was going to happen.

His chances for survival were one in a million, Leal learned later. DeLeon was taken first to Kaiser Medical Center in Walnut Creek and then transferred to Redwood City for a five-hour surgery. Doctors said his aneurysm had been close to bursting.

"It happened so quickly," Falk said, adding that she was pleased with the 9-1-1 response as well as the staff. During school emergency drills, usually custodians wait outside for the ambulance to direct paramedics to the site. But in this case, the school secretary led paramedics to where they were needed, Falk said.

"Stacey has taken on a lot more responsibility, calmly and with great humor," Falk said. Leal, who had her first child last spring, was acting head custodian while that person was out on medical leave, Falk explained.

"This incident really reflects the kind of person that she is; she has great compassion," Falk added.

DeLeon is currently recuperating at his home, and Leal said he is not expected back to work until March 12 at the earliest, but only time will tell.

"He's still getting headaches," she said. As to her role, Leal humbly added, "Timing was everything. I was in the right place at the right time."

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