Last September a beloved pickleball player at South Yuba Club collapsed on the court from cardiac arrest without a detectable pulse or breath.
The South Yuba Club was equipped with an automatic external defibrillator, also known as an AED, and Tim Feller’s life was saved.
Feller was lucky enough to have a physician’s assistant and two medical doctors also playing in the vicinity.
Barbara Fitterer, P.A., Dr. Steve DeMartini, and Dr. Ken Cutler were honored last week for saving Feller’s life at a friendly gathering at the South Yuba Club, located at 130 West Berryhill Drive in Grass Valley.
Feller, who has competed in the men’s senior 65+ at the 3.5 level in pickleball tournaments for years, was all smiles at the ceremony organized by Jim Doolittle, Retired Fire Captain with Sacramento City Fire.
There are two AEDs located at the club, one upstairs and one downstairs, according to Mark Carville, owner of South Yuba Club.
“All staff members here are CPR certified and AED trained,” Pickleball Director Gina Ford said. “That’s part of our policy.”
AEDs became more widely available and were increasingly used by emergency medical services in the 1980s, and before that CPR alone was applied, according to Doolittle.
Kristy Harlan, representing the Sacramento Sierra Valley EMS organization, presented an “I saved a life” award along with valuable information about the importance of AEDs and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
“This type of stuff is indeed rare,” Harlan said. “I have the data pulled for Nevada County for 2024, we had approximately 15 AED uses… I would guess that there’s one that survived. It is not that common.”
Today, Feller is healthy and back on the courts with his friends again.
Fitterer was on the court that day, and spoke about how the players recognized the emergency, and how she and Dr. DeMartini and Dr. Cutler responded.
One point Fitterer mentioned was that a person does not have to be a doctor to operate an AED in an emergency.
Once the AED is turned on, the device speaks aloud and gives step-by-step directions.
Fitterer’s pickleball team had just lost a match and people were gathered around the court when she and others noticed that Feller was down on the ground.
Fitterer knew to delegate tasks, such as getting someone to call 911 at the front deck of the club, while locating the AED and running back to the courts where Feller was unresponsive.
DeMartini and Cutler had started CPR on Feller, and the team of three were trying to stay calm and think through the steps.
“I’m so nervous... I ripped his shirt off, you know, just like, boom, boom, boom, and opened the pads,” Fitterer said. “Ken’s (Cutler) calmness was really critical.”
It became like a team, with each member serving a role of assessing the situation and following the steps as instructed by the machine.
The AED will analyze the heart rhythm and will instruct those preset to deliver a shock if needed. If no shock is advised, those present are to start CPR, according to Fitterer who referenced the instruction manual for AEDs published by The American Red Cross and the National Center for Early Defibrillation.
“In retrospect, it was pretty amazing, but in the moment, believe me, it’s scary,” Fitterer said. “It doesn’t matter how trained you are… The most important thing for the people in the room is this is not rocket science; that everybody can do it.”
