Clearwater Character Long Center Staff React in a Heartbeat, Saving the Life of a Man in Cardiac Arrest It was the start of another Friday at Clearwater’s Long Center. Fitness gurus were lifting weights in the fitness center, sounds of basketball sneakers echo across the gymnasium floor, filling the hallways; and visitors of all ages swam laps or were doing water aerobics in the center’s Olympic-size swimming pool. But on Jan. 10, those sounds of excitement soon gave way to sounds of panic. Albert Navaroli, 72, was getting a morning workout in by treading water in the pool. Shortly after beginning his routine, things took a terrible turn as Navaroli yelled for help and collapsed in the water. Nearby, Dawn Lewellyn, a contract instructor teaching water aerobics, saw Navaroli go under the water and immediately went into action, running over to pull Navaroli out of the water. Seeing this, lifeguard Megan MacLean blew her whistle three times, alerting other Long Center staff there’s an emergency. She then assisted Lewellyn in helping get him out of the pool. After getting Navaroli to shallow water, Lewellyn and MacLean discovered he had no pulse and was not breathing. “All I could see was my husband laying there lifeless,” Albert’s wife, Devenia Navaroli, said. She was swimming laps on the other side of the pool when her husband collapsed. 06 MyClearwater Seeing what was happening, pool supervisor Mark Roberson called 911 while another Long Center employee, Nate Bowne, ran to get the automated external defibrillator, or AED, which checks the heart rhythm and can send an electric shock to the heart to try to restore a normal rhythm during sudden cardiac arrest. “Nate ran by my office to grab the AED,” Long Center Supervisor Shaun Beasley said. “I ran out with Nate and saw a man in cardiac arrest.” Beasley immediately started helping Lewellyn and MacLean get Albert out of the water so they could start life-saving procedures. “Dawn, Mark and myself performed CPR, and Nate hooked up the AED.” “Shaun was doing the compressions, and Mark was doing the breathing, mouth-to-mouth,” Devenia Navaroli said. “Nate operated the defibrillator, did the shock.” In a bizarre twist of fate, while Long Center employees continued CPR, waiting on emergency personnel to arrive, Fire Lt. Kyle Mueller and his Clearwater Fire & Rescue dive team were arriving at the center to do some training. Being alerted to the emergency inside, they immediately ran inside to help, taking over CPR procedures until the city’s medics arrived.
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