Carson High School health science emergency medical services teacher Frank Sakelarios said he was proud of his student, Iris Ibarra Montes, a freshman, for using her CPR skills to help save her father’s life.
Photo by Jessica Garcia.
Carson High School freshman Iris Ibarra Montes was quick to use the CPR skills she learned in school to save her father when he had a medical emergency in late March.
CHS staff members praised Ibarra Montes for following the correct procedures and maintaining composure in a critical situation.
Frank Sakelarios, health science emergency medical services teacher, spoke highly of Ibarra Montes. He has taught at CHS for 15 years and said it’s difficult for younger students to assist in real-life situations.
“She’s a very good student, I love having her in my class,” he said. “I can’t say how proud that makes me of her because that’s something that’s very difficult to do on a loved one.
“Most of the time you hear of someone who has to have CPR done on someone, it’s not a pleasant outcome, and so to hear this outcome, it’s amazing to hear these things.”
Ibarra Montes described the signs her father experienced while babysitting one evening.
“It turns out he was sitting on the floor, his head back, and his tongue went back but he bit his tongue … and it took me a while to realize what it was because I was trying to get a response from him,” she said. “But after calling 911 and then saw he closed his eyes, I started CPR, trying to lay him down; 10 minutes later, the paramedics came and I let them do their job.”
Sakelarios said students are trained in their first-level class that it will be difficult to apply CPR or basic skills. Generally, responders work in pairs and apply CPR in two-minute rounds. Ibarra Montes gave her father lifesaving chest compressions for 10 minutes with no other adults in the home, an exhausting effort on the hands and wrists, she said.
“It felt different, it was really intense (compared to class),” she said.
Maddie Hull-Taylor, school counselor for Ibarra Montes, called her “amazing” as a student and daughter. Ibarra Montes has maintained a 3.4 grade point average and ranks in the top 20% of her class. Hull-Taylor said she is deserving of the recognition for her heroic act.
Ibarra Montes said she originally was considering accounting as a career option but now is thinking about nursing after helping her father and watching the paramedics who tended to him.
“After what happened, seeing my dad like that, having to do CPR, waiting for him to come back home … seeing how the nurses were treating everybody and treating him, I was planning to be an accountant, but now I kind of want to go into being a nurse,” she said. “I just want to help people, too.”