High school students honored after saving teacher who was having heart attack

Two metro Detroit students were honored after they helped save their teacher.

During a student-teacher basketball game on March 22, Oak Park Schools coach and physical education teacher, Al Kattola, collapsed due to sudden cardiac arrest.
 
Within seconds, Isreal DuBose, a 17-year-old Oak Park student began CPR.
 
“Until something happens, you don’t know how you’ll react,” said DuBose, who also works as a patient transporter at Corewell Health in Royal Oak and plans to study nursing, followed by general surgery. “I’m so proud and grateful I was able to be there, act quickly and start delivering compressions right away.”
 
Meanwhile, staff called 911 and arranged for team members to grab EMS and escort them to the scene. A group that included a second student, Corey Coleman, retrieved the AED and rushed it to Kattola’s side.
 
His shirt was removed, the AED censors were applied and auditory instructions that accompany the device guided the team in using the AED, which is needed to shock the heart into returning to its normal, healthy rhythm.
 
DuBose and Coleman learned how to perform CPR and initiate the chain of survival in a health sciences class provided by Oakland Schools just last December.
 
Assistant Principal Rona Glenn was part of the group who contributed to the rescue, calling 911 and assisting with AED retrieval.
 
“I will never forget returning to the gym and seeing Isreal giving compressions like no other,” Glenn said. “She and our entire team were a force; brave, confident and on-point, not once stopping to think about what we needed to do. We acted and followed through, determined to achieve signs of life in our beloved staff member.”

Corewell Health Children’s Student Heart Check is offering free student heart checks at high schools throughout the area to individuals age 13-18. Screening offerings, which include a physical examination; blood pressure check; electrocardiogram, or ECG; echocardiogram. To register: beaumont.org/services/heart-vascular/heart-centers/student-heart-check/upcoming-dates