Bristol-Plymouth student saved father’s life in harrowing emergency. What happened?
Daniel Schemer The Taunton Daily Gazette
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<![endif]>CPR saves lives, as the Gomes family can attest to.
On Saturday, July 19, while the whole family of four, who live in Assonet in Freetown, were having a nice day together, Robbie Gomes suffered cardiac arrest while behind the wheel of the family’s Toyota Highlander.
The rest of the family managed to regain control of the car before a serious accident happened. His son, Joshua Gomes, 16, performed CPR on his father while waiting for emergency response teams to arrive on the scene. Joshua Gomes said response team members told him he saved his father’s life that day by performing CPR.
Joshua, who is going into his junior year at Bristol-Plymouth Regional Technical School, said he learned CPR through his 10th grade health class.
“Everyone should learn CPR as soon as they can,” he said.
Quick thinking averts a crash
On July 19, the Gomes family was driving home after spending the day at Natick Mall. At around 7:40 p.m. after getting ice cream at Ben and Jerry’s on Route 9, they headed towards the highway, when Robbie lost consciousness. Joshua remembers the car being in the far-left lane and veering towards the guard rail separating the traffic on Route 9. Both Joshua, who was sitting in the back, and his mother Jennie remember trying to gain control of the car, with Joshua reaching over and pulling his father’s leg off the gas pedal and placing it on the breaks. They managed to pull over the car safely. Joshua flagged cars down to pull over while he was out of the car trying to pull his father out from the driver’s seat.
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<![endif]>Father begins breathing again as son performs CPR
Joshua recalls several cars pulling over, including one good Samaritan who helped him pull his father out of the car. Joshua said his father wasn’t breathing and had no pulse. He started performing CPR. Neither Joshua nor his mother Jennie recall who specifically called 911; it could have been any of the several cars that had pulled over. “I’m not the person you want when there’s an emergency. It was chaos,” said Jennie Gomes.
Joshua said it took five minutes, from the time they regained control of the car, for emergency response to arrive. He recalls getting his father to cough and breath again through CPR. But by the time police arrived, he lost consciousness again and CPR had to be performed again. Joshua said, eventually, his father was stabilized, and they rushed him to MetroWest Medical Center in Framingham, where he stayed overnight. The next day, Robbie Gomes was transferred to Tufts Medical Center in Boston, where he stayed an additional 10 days.
On how he reacted during the whole ordeal, Joshua said he remembers being in shock when the car started steering towards the guardrail on the road. “I wasn’t thinking. Everything just happened. My reaction was all-natural. I did what I needed to do,” Joshua said.
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<![endif]>‘Every day I’m getting better and stronger’
Robbie Gomes is back at home in Assonet, recovering from the cardiac incident, on leave from his job as a project coordinator with Xfinity.
Robbie said he has no prior history of cardiac issues and doctors couldn’t find a cause or factor that may have caused the incident. He said doctors found no blockage of any kind inside his body, and his heart isn’t enlarged. The whole incident, however, left Robbie with no memory of what happened. In fact, he said he doesn’t remember anything from the day of the incident, including driving to Natick or the first few days of his hospital stay at Tufts. “People came to visit me. I talked to them,” he said, but he “blacked out completely” those days.
Regardless, he had a pacemaker-defibrillator implanted while being cared for at Tufts. “Every day I’m getting better and stronger,” said Robbie Gomes, who recently just had his pacemaker checked on by his doctor.
Credits CPR training at B-P with saving dad’s life
Joshua Gomes, who’s studying metal fabrication at Bristol-Plymouth, said he didn’t know anything about CPR until he took first-aid training in his 10th grade health class this past school year.
He said he “100%” credits his school training for saving his father’s life and calls his former teacher, Pia Fortin, “an amazing teacher,” saying “I remembered everything she taught me that day.”
Fortin said first-aid training, which includes American Red Cross certification in CPR, lasts 4 1/2 weeks in her class. She credits B-P for ensuring it is taught in school. “You never know when you are going to need it,” she said. Fortin added, “I’m very proud of Josh and I’m glad his father is doing OK.”
B-P Assistant Superintendent Andrew Rebello said: “Joshua’s actions were nothing short of heroic and extraordinary. He took what he learned in our health class and saved his father’s life. This is a powerful reminder that our education model and investments are working."
"The education students receive at Bristol-Plymouth is preparing them for the real world and life. Joshua’s actions reflect exactly the kind of characteristics we strive to develop at Bristol-Plymouth: readiness, responsibility, and action when it matters most.”
David J. Ferreira
MAVA Communications Coordinator
DavidFerreira
There is no substitute for hard work. ~Thomas A. Edison