(onlineathens.com) – Teachers routinely do more than just teach the children in their charge, but what a team of Clarke County teachers and other school workers did Nov. 30 went far beyond the normal call of duty.

“The school, the team, basically saved my son’s life,” said Alexandria Fleming, mother of Fowler Drive Elementary School second-grader Ace Fleming.

Ace is an active child who loves basketball and dreams of becoming a scientist or doctor one day. He likes action figures, Spider-man and video games.

“He’s a normal 7-year-old,” his mother said.

 But Nov. 30 was anything but normal for Ace and more than a dozen Fowler Drive staff members who are trained as first responders through a Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta program called Project SAVE, for “Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness, Vision for Prevention Awareness and Education.”A little less than half of Georgia’s schools participate, about 1,250 in all, said Richard Lamthier, who manages Project Save for Children’s Healthcare.

All of Clarke County’s schools are recognized as “heart-safe,” he said.

Team members have training sessions twice a year and scramble into action during surprise blind drills when the team members don’t know if it’s real or not until they respond to the emergency.

That preparation made all the difference for Ace, said his mother.

Just before noon that Thursday, as children were lining up to go back inside after recess, Ace lay unresponsive on the ground. He had gone into cardiac arrest. Coach Mollie O’Neal called into the office to call 911 and notify the school’s own first responder team, trained in the kind of rapid response to a heart attack that can be the difference between life and death.

READ MORE››