By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
A lot has happened to Union High School junior Jessica Worthington since that sudden storm last summer during which she saved the life of a Kansas girl struck by lightning at Silver Beach on Lake Michigan.
"Montel" is arranging a surprise reunion of the two.
The girl's grandparents rewarded her with a Hawaiian vacation not yet taken.
Her Dowagiac City Council tribute, including a necklace, is one of nine awards.
Then 16, she appeared in 14 newspapers, including three in Kansas and one in Kentucky.
St. Joseph gave her a "Worthington Way" sign and a $50 gift certificate.
And then there's the fan mail, which fills a cooler-sized bin.
Whether anything else came of it, "I saved someone's life, which feels really good. I'll be friends with this person forever."
"I never expected anything or asked for anything," she said. "I still, to this day, don't think I needed anything. My family was surprised and happy, although they weren't surprised, either, because of my outgoing and talkative personality. Without my parents, I don't think I would have been able to get through all this. My mom (Wini) would reinforce that I did something good and should be proud of it. My dad (Dean) was kind of like my secretary because there were so many people and new reporters calling our house. He would take notes and I would call them back when I was ready. I've told this story like 500 times."
"Her outgoing, exuberant personality enabled her to reach out to Lyndsay and do what she did," her teacher, Linda O'Keefe, said. "As teachers, we all want you to sit in your little desks with your hands folded and be little angels and not say anything. The previous year, when I had Jessica, I was always telling her to turn around, face the front and be quiet. When she told me the wonderful thing she did, I felt guilty that I had yelled at her for a whole year. She's a fireball."
There has also been a downside to sudden fame, such as nightmares.
"I would wake up, look at Kathy and she would resemble Lyndsay," she said. "I have post-traumatic stress disorder. If I see lightning on TV or hear it in storms, I kind of break down and flash back, like a soldier."
She returned Friday to O'Keefe's Healthy Lifestyles classes she took last year to impress upon fellow students the importance of learning cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
Jessica and friends Kathy Lindt and Chris Hass went to the beach almost every day last summer, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening.
Ironically, her dad didn't want her to go July 3, but she "begged" him until he relented. "He decided I could find something better to do for that day. He wasn't going to let me go," Jessica recalls.
Sitting on the dunes waiting for fireworks, the storm blew in, so they sought refuge in the car. Kathy and Chris were were seated in front, Jessica was in back as they talked and laughed.
"We heard this real loud crack," she said. "It was lightning hitting a tree. Chris said, 'Dude! That girl just got struck by lightning.' The three of us debated what we wanted to do. We had to think about it really fast, but at the time it felt like a century.
"Because the whole family was walking on the sidewalk in front of us when the lighting struck the tree and a strong shoot hit Lyndsay, some smaller ones hit the grandma and the sister and went up their legs, so they also felt it, but were able to walk away. An offshoot (she compares a bolt spreading out like roots on an inverted tree) hit Lyndsay. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"We think of lightning bolts coming straight down," O'Keefe interjected, "but it doesn't. It actually zig-zags and there are offshoots."
"The lightning threw her four feet," Jessica said. "She landed on her face. Kathy and I were overwhelmed. Her grandpa and sister rolled her over. Smoke was coming out of her mouth. We saw colors come off her – purple, blue and pink. Kathy and I both know CPR, but she held on to the steering wheel and said she couldn't do it."
For that matter, Lyndsay's grandfather is certified to teach CPR and told Jessica that she was doing it too fast. "I think because it was his granddaughter, he couldn't do anything," Jessica said. "If it was my brother (Jacob), I hope I would try, but I'd be really scared."
"It was kind of scary and I didn't really want to go out there," the reluctant heroine said. "I actually wanted to leave, but I'm glad I didn't. I rolled up my pants, took off my shoes and went out there and started the compressions. Her eyes rolled back into her head, which fell over. There was a really bad stench, like burning rubber, only 10 times worse."
Jessica, dressed in her Chieftain cheerleading outfit for a pep assembly after her talk, said Lyndsay's grandma and sister were by the tree, praying, while her grandpa held her arm, checking for a pulse.
"As I started, there was a kind of crackling sound in her chest," Jessica said, "from cartilage breaking. As I did 30 compressions to two breaths, her grandpa said I was going too fast. I said, 'No, I know what I'm doing,' and I just continued until paramedics got there. There were people around, covering me from the rain. Lightning was still striking. As they put Lyndsay in the ambulance, the EMTs told Lyndsay's grandma that the first person on the scene saved her life. I revived her and brought her back to life. She had no pulse and was unconscious."
Returning to the safety of their car, Jessica realized she was "overwhelmed at everything I just saw. I called my mom and told her everything I did. She didn't know what to say. A couple of days later I got to meet Lyndsay," 10, of Haysville, Kan.
After the applause dies, a girl asks Jessica if she was scared.
"I was nervous about going out there, but there was so much adrenaline I didn't think about what I was doing," Jessica said. "She lost her short-term memory, her ear drum was blown and it looked like someone whipped her on her back. They were like scars from the inside. The doctor said they could be like five inches wide because of the electricity that went through her body from the inside out. She'll probably be scarred for the rest of her life. Her ear drum she had fixed just before Christmas. Her memory's back to normal."
Jessica said Lyndsay was wearing a bathing suit with a windbreaker over it. The jacket's zipper "melted to her body."
O'Keefe said Lindt called her on the Fourth of July, saying, "Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for teaching CPR."
"Then she put Jessica on the phone and Jessica explained the whole story of everything that had happened the day before … I called the mayor and the Dowagiac Daily News. I also called a fireman I knew from Chicago. He had never seen what she described, like the smoke coming out of the mouth, the eyes rolling back in her head, the blood on her chin. The fireman said his hat really goes off to Jessica because it's so rare that people are saved. But with the new CPR ratio of two breaths and 30 compressions, the American Medical Association felt that would save a lot more people. Lyndsay is living proof that it did actually work. Also, the new slogan for CPR is 'Push hard, push fast.' You might remember Jessica saying that Lyndsay's grandfather told Jessica she was going too fast. When we finish our CPR unit we will have a first aid unit."
"I just ignored negative feedback," Jessica said. "The time you take away from the person you're trying to help to explain to somebody else what you're doing, that's their life at risk."
O'Keefe explained about the cartilage crunching. "Ribs are attached to the sternum by cartilage. When you push down, it is going to break. Most repairs itself. We have cartilage in our ears and our nose. The only place that I know of where cartilage does not repair itself is in a knee. If you tear cartilage in a knee, then you need to go to an orthopedic surgeon. In emergency rooms they have a machine they put on heart attack victims that will do the compressions, but you will still hear that cartilage cracking."
"The grossest thing to me was when her eyes rolled back in her head and her head fell over," Jessica admitted. "I just wanted to get back in the car. It was weird, like disgusting exorcism stuff. But I was already out there, so I just kept going. A lot of people ask me, 'Did you touch her mouth?' No. Actually, when I took the class last year, DJ Edgerly and I were grossed out by putting our mouths on those two big dummies, so he showed me how to do it with my hand, without putting my mouth on her. There was blood on her chin because she fell on her face. I didn't want to touch that blood because I didn't know her, I didn't know who she was. I had so much adrenaline going through my body, I couldn't think about being tired. I have scars on my feet because when I was on the ground on my knees, my feet scraped the cement and took all the skin off."
O'Keefe said five CPR cycles can be conducted each minute, "so if she did CPR for five minutes, that means she did about 25 cycles."
"You've got a lot of guts," a female student told her.
Jessica said she doesn't want to become an EMT. She's interested in a career in dental hygiene.
Jessica recalled learning CPR a year ago.
"I didn't like learning it and I thought it was so stupid. I would never use it. Now that I have used it, I know how important it is to know it. It bugs me because girls sit in the back with drama problems and talking the whole time. It irritates me because you'd think after knowing somebody that went through this class who really had to use it, they'd be respectful and listen, but they don't. I try really hard not to say anything and to mind my own business, but you're taking it for a reason.
"What was going through my mind was the task and what I had to do," she said. "My goal was to keep her alive, and I just thought about the steps Mrs. O'Keefe teaches you guys. That's why you need to pay attention."
O'Keefe said Worthington is also trained in the AED – the automatic external defibrillator (shocking paddles). "You will also be trained in that, she told her students. "It would analyze the victim and tell you if they needed a shock or if you needed to continue with CPR. One thing we need to stress is that you do need to get over those psychological barriers. The grandfather was a certified instructor, like me, but he could not get beyond the psychological barriers when he rolled his granddaughter over and saw smoke coming out of her mouth and her eyes rolling back in her head. Put those things behind you."
Would she do it again? a student wonders.
"I wouldn't want to," Jessica said, "but I would in a heartbeat."