A heartbeat away

On Feb. 24, Andrea Martin was working from home when the phone rang.

It was someone from Orleans Wood Elementary School calling with bad news about Griffin.

Griffin stopped breathing...come right away.

Andrea raced to the school, around the corner from their home. A police officer ushered her into a patrol car and they rushed to Montfort Hospital just in time to see paramedics wheel Griffin through the doors of the emergency entrance.

"I saw him being wheeled in and yelled to him, Griffin come back, come back!

The medical team quickly went to work.

There were 10 doctors and nurses who tried valiantly to save his life, Andrea said. The police were lined up outside his room to wait and see what happened.

By that time Damien had joined his wife at the hospital.

It seemed like watching something from the outside, he recalled. It was just as you see in a hospital drama, but we were in it.

The doctors tried to revive Griffin for 90 minutes, but the boy never regained a heartbeat. Eventually Damien and Andrea told them to stop.

"It's brutal, Damien said. You know objectively that there's nothing more that can be done, but it's still, making that decision to stop was difficult. It was the hardest thing ever imagined.

The shattered couple left the hospital in stunned silence.

The details of what had happened at school emerged over the following days.

That morning, Griffins class had gone skating at the nearby Bob MacQuarrie Recreation Complex, then returned to school.

An hour later, during recess, Griffin and his friends were playing outside on a pile of snow. Suddenly Griffin sat down and toppled over.

His friends thought Griffin was joking around and pretending to be asleep. But they quickly realized something was seriously wrong. A teacher discovered Griffin wasnt breathing and didnt have a pulse. Hed gone into cardiac arrest.

Staff members started CPR. Ottawa paramedics received the 911 call at 11:47 a.m., and their logs show they arrived at the school within seven minutes. Firefighters arrived around the same time.

The decision was made to rush the boy to the nearby Montfort instead of the Childrens Hospital of Eastern Ontario, but it was already too late for doctors to save him.

Its not mandatory for boards in Ontario to equip their schools with defibrillators. Manitoba is the only province that requires all public places, including schools, to have AEDs on hand.

According to Ontario Education Minister Mitzie Hunter, the province has spent $10 million to buy defibrillators for public facilities, including schools.

School boards are able to provide AEDs for schools, and many of them do have that in place, Hunter told CBC.

Unlike the OCDSB, Ottawas Catholic board has equipped every one of its schools with AEDs. That includes St. Matthew Catholic High School, 500 metres from Orleans Wood.

So why are there so few at OCDSB elementary schools?

Mike Carson, the boards chief financial officer and superintendent of facilities, said the barrier isnt money, its maintenance.

In addition to the provincial funding, the board received a grant five years ago from a national foundation to place defibrillators in some of its schools. It chose to put them in all of its high schools, as well as elementary schools where gyms were commonly used by adult sports clubs after hours.

None has ever been used in a medical emergency.

Carson estimates it would cost roughly $200,000 to put portable defibrillators in all the boards 143 schools. Thats about $1,400 per device.

Its a significant amount, but its certainly not the barrier, Carson said.

The real barrier, Carson said, came when the board realized it was more complicated than simply mounting the machines on a wall.

We realized there were some issues for us in terms of training and upkeep, Carson said.

Once youve installed it, [we have to make] sure its properly charged, that its tested every month. The only thing worse than not having one is having [a defibrillator] that people think they can rely on, and having it not work.

Carson said there were also concerns among teachers and other staff members who might be required to operate the AEDs.

Our staff certainly had reservations about their ability to use it.

Damien Martin was surprised to learn that, of all things, was the sticking point.

I dont think that was ever a reasonable barrier, he said. If you dont put an AED in a school and someone suffers cardiac arrest, that person is almost guaranteed to die. I think the choice is pretty clear.

For the Martins, learning to live without Griffin and becoming functioning people has been a long, painful road.

They know they have to stay strong for their daughter, Rowan. Theyve attended support groups at the Roger Neilson House, which they said have helped.

But the reminders are everywhere.

On school days they can hear children at Orleans Wood playing at recess.

Inside their home, its quiet now. Griffin was a busy 8-year-old boy who filled the house with noise and invented new games for the family to play.

"He had a really unique way of looking at the world. He could make a game out of anything," Damien remembered.

He was also a kind, caring boy who loved his family and thought his house was the best place to be.

There are still cider stains on the couch where Griffin liked to sit. His urn now rests on the little table where he used to sketch.

Griffin will never drink another hot apple cider in his favourite spot. Hell never get another ride upstairs, never hear another story or get a hug or kiss goodnight.