High Praise for Catonsville High Bystander Response in Girl's Emergency

A day after a on the field at , parents and school officials are praising the quick thinking of bystanders and coaches who came to the girl's rescue.

Breanna Sudano collapsed and was not breathing after her junior varsity team field hockey team played Catonsville around 5 p.m. Tuesday.

Lindsey Springer, the varsity coach for Catonsville's field hockey team, said that multiple parents and coaches rushed to the field to help perform CPR on Sudano.

High School Principal Deborah Bittner and Athletic Director David Lane said Catonsville JV coach Christine Erlichman, one of the Perry Hall coaches and two parents with CPR training, administered CPR to Sudando. The parents were identified as Shelly Hunt and Melissa Law.

Coaches who work for Baltimore County are required to be trained in CPR, according to schools spokesperson Charles Herndon.

But parents also questioned the route of emergency personnel called to the scene.

Parents at the game told Patch that when the ambulance arrived, it went to the parking lot above the stadium at Hilltop Road, instead of the entrance on Valley Road, which is typically the entrance ambulances use to access the field. It was another several minutes before the ambulance made it down to the lower field, parents said.

"It was frustrating to see them to go the wrong lot," said Beth Reymann, a parent who was at the game and watched the ambulance go to the parking lot.

"When you're watching them do CPR, it seemed like forever," Reymann said.

Elise Armacost, a spokeswoman for county police and emergency response services, said that the call was dispatched at 5:08 p.m. A fire engine and an EMS supervisor arrived on the scene one second before 5:12 p.m., Armacost said.

Once the first crew arrived, emergency personnel immediately started attending to the patient, she said.

"What we're concerned about with any medical call is to get any unit there as quickly as possible."

Armacost said did not know why the ambulance went to that particular parking lot first.

Reymann, who is also president of the Comet Booster Club, said she has talked with school officials about the idea of adding more signs at all of the school's parking lots to direct visitors and help prevent another such occurrence.

Lane said he has also provided maps and directions to all area emergency response units.

All schools are also provided with automated external defibrillators (AEDs) but the AED was not available on the field on Tuesday, Bittner said. There is no school system policy for defibrillators to be on a field during an athletic event, Herndon said.

The school is going to look at having an AED kept at the stadium for games, Bittner said. The school has four AEDs.

Bill Seiler, a media relations representative for the University of Maryland Medical Center, said Sudano's "condition was good" on Wednesday afternoon.