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Safe Sitter class gave girl knowledge to help a friend
The girl received the Good Citizenship Award from the Struthers Board of Education.
AUSTINTOWN — Friends Caitlyn Schuller and Jasmine Shaver were riding bikes after school on Vollmer Drive when Jasmine stopped talking in midsentence.
Caitlyn, riding ahead of her friend, turned around to see why she had stopped talking and saw Jasmine lying crumpled in the middle of the street, her bike nearby.
Frightened, Caitlyn, 12, hurried back to see what was wrong.
She found Jasmine, 11, bleeding from scrapes and cuts on her face and elbows and knees and from a cut inside her mouth suffered when her bike crashed.
“As first, I thought she might have been hit by a car, but as I got closer, I realized she was having a seizure,” said Caitlyn, who knew Jasmine had had a couple of previous seizures.
“I was scared and worried. We play together a lot,” said Caitlyn.
Despite her fear, Caitlyn remained calm and called 911 on her cell phone, which her mother, Cynthia Davies, had said she was grounded from using.
“Thank God she didn’t listen and took it with her anyway,” Mrs. Davies said.
Caitlyn said she called 911, “like they taught me in Safe Sitter class,” and stayed on the line and asked what to do.
“They said not to move her and to keep cars away. I was holding Jasmine’s head and trying to keep her awake,” Caitlyn said.
In the meantime, neighbors and passers-by stopped to help until the ambulance arrived and took Jasmine to the hospital, accompanied by her older brother, Terrell, who was home at the time while her parents were shopping.
Jasmine said she doesn’t remember anything about what happened until she woke up in the ambulance, and then she thought, “Oh, man, it’s happening again.”
She said she had a couple of seizures before and again after that day, Sept. 22, but now takes medication to control them. She said they come out of nowhere without warning. She said the seizures are not caused by epilepsy.
“I called Caitlyn from the hospital. I didn’t know she had called 911. I said thanks,” said Jasmine, a sixth-grade pupil at Austintown Middle School. She is the daughter of Tamie and John Shaver Jr. and has two brothers, John III, 2, and Terrell, 17.
Caitlyn, a seventh-grade pupil at Struthers Middle School, says she wants to become a photographer or writer, has been recognized for her actions helping Jasmine, who aspires to be a dancer.
Caitlyn received the Good Citizenship Award in September from the Struthers Board of Education. Also, she will be featured in a “Hero” story in the December Safe Sitter Æ E Monthly, a newsletter the Safe Sitter organization sends to its instructors across the country.
Caitlyn, the daughter of Cynthia and stepdaughter of Matthew Davies in Austintown and daughter of Charles Schuller and stepdaughter of Ronda Schuller of Struthers, credits the Safe Sitter class, which she took in August 2008 at Akron Children’s Hospital in Boardman, for helping her remain calm and knowing what to do to help Jasmine. Caitlyn has two siblings, Anthony Marsicola, 5; and Zachary Davies, 13.
Caitlyn’s parents praised her for the way she handled the situation.
“We are extremely proud of her,” Cynthia said on behalf of herself and her husband.
“It’s easy to lose your head in a situation like the one Caitlyn found herself in, regardless of age or level of first-aid training. Both Ronda and I feel an immense amount of pride in her for remaining calm and taking control in this type of emergency,” Schuller said.
alcorn@vindy.com