Trainer's a life saver

Terry Smith knew the drill.

And because he did, Aurora University basketball player Liz Pearlman and her family are able to thank him today.

“For years you say, ‘Thank God, I never had to use it,’ ” the AU athletic trainer said of his skills in cardiopulmonary resuscitation. He has taught CPR classes many times. “As I tell my classes, ‘You learn it, and it seems monotonous, but there’s a reason for it.’ ”

On Oct. 15, Smith was put to the test when Pearlman, a 6-foot junior center from Chicago, collapsed after running sprints the first day of practice, lost consciousness and went into cardiac arrest.

Six days later, as Pearlman sat in the lobby at Provena Mercy Center, her eyes welled with tears as her mother, Cathy, recounted the events.

“This is the emotional part,” Cathy said. “The doctors here think [Smith] was a real hero because there was no time lapse. [Pearlman] wasn’t lacking in oxygen. She [still] has all her cognitive abilities.”

Pearlman won’t play basketball competitively again. She went home from the hospital last week wearing a vest equipped with a defibrillator. But the biology major likely will return to classes this semester, and her dream of becoming a veterinarian is still alive.

“I’ve heard so many [versions] of the stories,” Pearlman said as she sat in a chair beside her hospital bed, where her laptop computer lay. “[Smith] kept oxygen going to my brain and remained calm.

“In six months, I’ll have a [stress] test, which will help determine if I need to have a defibrillator implanted. I never thought today I’d be sitting here, discussing [and sending Facebook messages about] heart issues.”

Cathy Pearlman and her husband, Richard, remain in awe.

“It’s just inspiring,” she said. “There’s not a person we have come across who is not somehow affected by it. To see a young person who is not even 21 yet survive a near-death experience — amazing."

The 38-year-old Smith, who has been head trainer at AU for six years, was routinely monitoring the women’s basketball practice.

“I was on one side of the court, and Liz was on the other,” he said. “Like a lot of the players, she was bent over, breathing hard, and then she went down. I walked over and started to say, ‘OK, Liz, let’s get up. As I got to her, she was having trouble breathing, and it spiraled out of control.”

He knew what to do, telling an assistant coach to call 911 and instructing coach Michelle Roof to get the automated external defibrillator in the lobby of Thornton Gym while he started CPR.

Roof sprinted back with the device and took over the CPR as Smith started to hook it up.

An assistant coach had the players clear the gym, paramedics arrived, and Pearlman was taken to an ambulance.

Later that night in the intensive care unit, Pearlman awoke to find she was breathing through a tube.

“She signed ‘I love you’ with her hand,” said her dad, “And it was the first time I knew that her brain was OK.”