EMT who performed CPR at camp suffers major stroke, dies
Posted: August 15, 2015 - 3:30am

EFFORT, Pa. (AP) — An emergency medical technician who fell ill while performing CPR at a camp for the developmentally disabled has died days later, her mother says.

The EMT, Samantha Agins, performed CPR on a woman who went into cardiac arrest at New Jersey Camp Jaycee, her mother said. Agins, who was 22, began to feel ill immediately after administering CPR to the woman, but because it was the first time she had performed the maneuver those around her thought she was just in shock, her mother said.

Agins later suffered a series of strokes, mom Paula Agins said.

"Sam started giving her CPR," Paula Agins told the Pocono Record (http://bit.ly/1JWiJog). "She hooked up the (automated external defibrillator), and it kept telling her to push harder. She never wanted to quit."

The woman who went into cardiac arrest at New Jersey Camp Jaycee eventually died.

After Sam Agins was taken home, she had a major stroke early on Aug. 8 and was rushed to a hospital. A doctor determined that an artery wall was torn during CPR and caused her to suffer a stroke in her brain stem, her mother said. She was transported to a Philadelphia hospital and died Tuesday.

Agins, who was from Tobyhanna, was a senior at East Stroudsburg University and wanted to become a physician's assistant, her mother said. A memorial scholarship is being set up in her name.

New Jersey Camp Jaycee, a joint effort of the New Jersey Jaycees and The Arc of New Jersey, offers summer camp experiences to people with developmental disabilities, according to its website. It has operated since 1975.

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Information from: Pocono Record, http://www.poconorecord.com/