EMT called to save child’s life
By Jo Zulkowsky
Imagine you have just become an EMT and the first call comes in.
A two-year-old girl has been electrocuted at the grocery store when she touched a meat locker that shorted out. When you arrive on the scene you realize she is your daughter.
That is what happened to John Murphy, a part-time IVCC instructor, on his birthday, May 27, 1978.
"I heard the ambulance call go out when I was about five doors down from the store," Murphy said. "When I got there about eight people were standing around but no one was doing anything. I then realized it was Kathy (Murphy)."
Murphy started CPR, since his daughter wasn't breathing, while he waited for an ambulance to arrive. No drivers were available, however, so an ambulance never arrived.
Nearly half and hour later, Murphy, still doing CPR, and a friend put Kathy in a car for the drive to Perry Memorial Hospital in Princeton where they got her heart started.
Kathy was then rushed to St. Francis Hospital in Peoria, and, of all of the people St. Francis has treated for electrocution, she is the youngest to have survived.
"She wouldn’t have survived without CPR", said Murphy.
This spring Kathy will graduate from law school.
And Murphy continues to serve as an EMT and as a fireman for Tiskilwa. A graduate of SIU - Carbondale, with an Aviation License, he and his wife Ginger have a second daughter, Amy.
He began the ambulance service in Tiskilwa when he realized "we were just a fire department and no one had any rescue skills."
Describing an accident call the fire department responded to, Murphy said, "We didn't know how to control the bleeding or anything."
After his daughter's accident, Murphy thought about the eight people who were standing around not knowing what to do, and he took a class to be certified as an EMT instructor.
Now he teaches EMT classes at IVCC and in the past year has trained IVCC's First Responder team.
"My biggest drive for all of this was Kathy's accident," Murphy said. "I look at it as pay back to train as many people as I can because next time it could be them. Without CPR Kathy would have died."
Murphy, who also owns the Bureau Valley Chief, has been teaching EMT classes for the college since 1978 when he reluctantly agreed to help a nurse instructor with the ambulance side of the class.
"I had never been a teacher and didn't think I would do well," he said.
His most recent venture for the college, and what he describes as his best class, was teaching the First Responders.
"I was the most nervous since it was other faculty," he said. "I would be critiqued by the best. But no one was afraid to ask a question. By the end of the course, we were like family."
Murphy complimented the college, and President Dr. Jean Goodnow, for quality people and quality equipment for the team.
"We are equipped with the same type of gear an ambulance would have but we are right hear and available in an emergency, which is better than having to wait on an ambulance," Murphy said in an obvious reference to his daughter's accident.
"You never know when they (ambulance) will arrive," he continued. "It could be a few seconds or minutes, which can mean life or death."
Murphy encourages everyone to take a CPR class.
"You never know when it could save a life. The last person I expected to save was my own daughter."