The Ray of Life Foundation

Changed in a heartbeat
Tom Graves,
THE REGISTER Saturday, August, 2006
A dramatic O.C. beach resuscitation altered three lives

UNITED: Jose Rodriguez embraces his "guardian angels, Ray of Life's Helena Jacobson and lifeguard Dale Adama.
 

A cardiac arrest three years ago in Huntington beach brought together three people in ways that would change their lives.

State lifeguard supervisor Dale Adama revived Jose Rodriguez of Whittier using an automatic external defibrillator donated by Helena Jacobson.

Jacobson's work directing the Ray of Life Foundation was suddenly validated by the first successful rescue using a donated defibrillator.

She started Ray of Life to distribute defibrillators after her husband, Ray Jacobson, an emergency-room doctor, died of cardiac arrest in January 2001.

"I thought, if Ray had not died, this man would not be alive," says Jacobson, of Lake  Forest. 

Three years later, Adama's rescue is retold more among lifeguard trainees, Jacobson's work with Ray of Life is branching out, and Rodriguez, now 78, is enjoying the benefits of successful quadruple-bypass surgery. 

But none would forget how their paths crossed on July 22, 2003.

The lifeguard

Dale Adama still works at Huntington Beach State Beach, and he remembers that July day vividly.

He and Mike Brousard were taking turns consoling the family of a high school football player who drowned the day before. The family was keeping a vigil on the beach, and the body had not been found.

Adama had already dealt with a young girl swimmer who needed to be "back-board" because of a neck injury.
 
"That was a tough day," Adama said.

Brousard brought Adama a sandwich to eat in his car, and that's what he was doing when a beachgoer beckoned him.

Rodriguez was taking a shower when he collapsed. He had turned blue and had no vital signs, so Adama got a passer-by to retrieve the defibrillator while he started CPR. Rodriguez started breathing after the first shock, and Adama felt what he describes as a "huge adrenalin rush."

"I can't imagine comparing it to anything," Adama says.

Lifeguards who show trainees how to use the AEDs usually mention Dale Adama's rescue that day, but he doesn't like to boast about it, and usually speaks of it only when asked.

"I try to be humble about it," he says. "I was there in that golden few minutes. I am very proud of it. He was definitely at the right place at the right time, for the wrong thing to happen."

Adama looks at that day as one of the highlights of his career, the kind of day that reminds lifeguards why they went into the field. "I wish I could have a day like that every day."

The Donor

Creating the Ray of Life Foundation to distribute defibrillators became Helena Jacobson's mission after her husband died of cardiac arrest while on a fishing trip.

The Foundation has donated more then 150 defibrillators to public safety personnel, government agencies, schools and churches throughout Orange County.

Jacobson keeps a photo on her desk showing Jose Rodriguez with her sons Nicholas and Anthony, when they were ages 10 and 1, in his back yard, under an old avocado tree. When they visited, Rodriguez showed them how to pick avocados and told Nicholas, "if not for your father, I would not be here today."

The foundation continues its work distributing defibrillators, but success stories like Rodriguez are rare.

During most of the foundation's five years, Jacobson has run it full time. But last year she decided to work in the medical field, and for a while juggled two jobs.

"I did a lot of soul-searching," she says. "After a couple of months, I realized that Ray of Life needed my attention 100 percent. There's more work to be done."

Jacobson and her board of directors have expanded the scope of the foundation. Now 19 trainers, including Jacobson, teach CPR and the use of defibrillators."

The more people we train, the more there are people who can respond to emergencies," Jacobson says.

Through Birch Medical Imaging in Newport Beach, and partnerships with other medical care provides, the foundation is working to make heart screening affordable.

Jacobson also is working toward making sales of defibrillators and supplies part of the foundation's mission. Once the program is operating, a portion of the sales will go back into the fund to donate defibrillators.

"At first I was like, "I don't want to be in sales," she says. "But this complements what we are doing."

Jacobson took her son Anthony, 4, to a recent visit with Rodriguez and Adama at Huntington Beach for a Register photo shoot. She told Anthony what these people meant to her and Ray of Life.

Anthony asked her, "Is daddy still working up there?"

The Rescued Man

Jose Rodriguez has a positive attitude about life that has only improved with age.

A week after he collapsed, he was sitting up and grinning, embracing Jacobson and Adama, whom he called "guardian angels."

"I'm a young man," he told Jacobson from his hospital bed at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, where he was about to undergo quadruple-bypass surgery.

His doctor told him his lifestyle of moderate exercise, with no drinking or smoking, gave him a healthy outlook.

But Rodriguez and his wife, Evangelina, mainly credit their faith. They met at a Mormon church in Los Angeles.

"I have the same philosophy that I did before," Rodriguez says. "I believe we are here for a purpose... for the benefit of others, to serve others."

He says the surgery made some activities easier, including breathing. 

He and Evangelina enjoy going on outings with the Whittier Senior Center. He participated in a memoir-writing class and a video program for World War II veterans. To the envy of many vets, he still fits in the uniform he wore as a Navy reservist.

Rodriguez has had no heart trouble since his bypass surgery and enjoys activities typically favored by younger people, such as riding roller coasters.

In May he went to Knot's Berry Farm alone. He rode Silver Bullet five times and the Xcelerator 10 times.

"Some of my friends look at me and say, "What are you doing?" he says.

A Second Beach Rescue

Last month, lifeguard supervisor Brousard called Jacobson a second time in three years to tell her she had just helped save a life, again.

The call came after the July 15 rescue of a surfer by lifeguard Gray Richards in San Clemente, using another donated defibrillator. It was almost three years after he called her about Rodriguez.

For Jacobson, the renewed validation was motivating.

"It was a very exciting phone call," Jacobson says. "We've got to keep moving forward. We've got to donate more AEDs."

CONTACT US:tgraves@ocregister.com or 714-704-3705

Since Ray Jacobson's sudden passing, dozens of stories have been written about him and the legacy he has left. Below you will find a number of articles that offer a look into the life of an extraordinary man, my husband and my best friend and the work we are doing in his memory. 

Two Hearts

A woman turns her grief over her husband's death into action in an effort to bring defibrillators to public places in Orange County.
March 27, 2001
BY: MAYRAV SAAR
The Orange County Register

A normal heartbeat begins as an impulse, an electrical surge in the upper right chamber of the heart. It travels down a single pathway to the lower chamber where the energy spreads, inducing the muscle to pump blood to the body and lungs. That's a normal heartbeat.

Emergency-room doctor Raymond Jacobson had an extra electrical pathway in his heart. The pulse looped around the muscle, making it quiver too quickly. He had too many heartbeats. Too much electricity.

Helena and Ray Jacobson felt they had too much of everything. Too much love, too much friendship, too much fun. Happy to the brink of fear. It couldn't possibly last.

She invited him to go fishing on the man-made lake outside her Lake Forest home on a Thursday. By that Saturday, he had proposed. They were married nine months later on March 7, 1999, along the coast of San Clemente.

They were like school kids at 38, hiding love notes in each other's wallets and cars. Letting dinner grow cold, as they'd talk about absolutely everything. Ray embraced Helena's fanaticism about heart-shaped trinkets, helping her fill the house with heart candles, heart wall hangings, heart china. She indulged his USC devotion.

Ray was in the process of adopting Helena's 8-year-old son, Nicholas, who had been calling him Dad since the couple's first date. And after a failed pregnancy, the couple found out four months ago that Helena was pregnant again.

"Having all your dreams come true is really frightening," Helena says, holding a wheezing Pomeranian, Alskar, or "Love" in Swedish, who suffers from congestive heart failure. "Something is going to happen."

Short-lived Love Affair

A few things did happen, but they managed to get through them. Three days after their wedding, Ray was rushed to the emergency room with pancreatic. He had also gone to the emergency room a few times to have his spastic heart stopped and restarted again. Ray was the director of the emergency unit at San Clemente Hospital, so when he told Helena that his heart condition wouldn't kill him; she tried not to worry about it.

Still, they each had a feeling their time together would be brief. Ray had lost both his parents; Helena lived through the death of both her sisters, her father and her best friend. As much as they talked about anything else, they talked about the ephemeral nature of life and about funeral arrangements.

Every day that he could, he'd gather his co-workers or his family or whoever was around him and make them stand outside, holding hands, to watch the sunset. It was his way of sharing the idea that life is fleeting and worth appreciating.

Helena explains this all quickly. This is not what she wants to spend time talking about. She is carrying a turquoise envelope filled with information about Operation Heartbeat, a nationwide program of the American Heart Association to improve survival from sudden cardiac arrest.

She volunteered with Operation Heartbeat about a year ago through San Clemente Hospital, where she is the director of marketing. She was fascinated by the program's push to place automatic external defibrillators (AEDs) in public places. The AEDs are connected to pads placed on a person's chest that send out shocks to restart a stopped heart. She attended American Heart Association events and volunteered for just about everything. She memorized the statistics (sudden cardiac arrest kills 350,000 Americans a year) and bounced ideas off her ER doctor husband about where in San Clemente AEDs should be placed (beaches and golf courses).

"The terrifying thing about sudden cardiac death," Helena says, in a focused lecture voice, "is that it can strike anyone at any time. And each minute without defibrillation, your chance at survival drops 10 percent."

Cardiac arrest comes without the sweating, chest pains or arm aches of a heart attack. There are no warning signs. Just out-of-tempo heartbeats called arrhythmias that prevent the heart from pumping blood to the body and brain. First, a victim loses his pulse. Then he loses consciousness. His brain cells die for lack of oxygen. Within minutes, if CPR and defibrillation aren't started, the person can't survive. That is how Ray died.

He woke up on Jan. 29, the first day of a three-day fishing trip with his best friend at Shaver Lake and said he didn't feel quite right. Ray told his friend to grab breakfast and come back for him. When his friend returned, he found Ray on the floor. It was too late to revive him with an AED, even if one had been available at the hotel.

Keeping His Memory Alive

Maybe it's a widow's need to stay busy to stay sane. Maybe it's a way to continue her husband's dedication to helping others. Whatever it is, friends and co-workers noticed Helena had poured her strength into Operation Heartbeat. Through the American Heart Association, Helena set up the Raymond Jacobson Memorial Fund, which has raised $27,000 in the two months since his death to install and train people to use AEDs in San Clemente, Dana Point and San Juan Capistrano.

"Since Ray died, she - I'm not going to pick the right word - it's become a top priority for her," says Pat Wolfram, CEO of San Clemente Hospital, who knew the couple well. "She's more out in the community and talking about it with more people now."

A single AED costs around $3,500. Add to that the price of training and CPR classes, and Helena figures her $21,000 can buy south county four or five AEDs.

"He saved lives every day," she says. "What more meaningful way to pay tribute to him than to continue saving lives in his name?"

San Clemente internist Steve Cullen will study the effectiveness of AEDs in the hands of lay people, and eventually Helena hopes to expand the program elsewhere in the county.

The University of Washington is working with Mission Hospital to do a similar study in more than 30 Orange County senior centers, Costco stores, colleges and malls. Operation Heartbeat will donate a defibrillator to the County Board of Supervisors on April 9, and the American Heart Association will host a CPR training day at Orange Coast College on April 28, in which Helena is also involved.

"If there is such a thing as a calling, this is it," Helena says. "After his death, it totally made sense. It's been really helpful in the healing process to know that there's a reason to go on." In the kitchen of her Lake Forest home, she picks up a picture of Ray in a sterling-silver heart-shaped frame. "We're going to save lives," she says. Helena's other project has been to save memories of Ray for Nickie and the unborn baby, who she recently found out, will be a son. Instead of flowers, Helena asked Ray's mourners to send memories - funny, poignant, mundane. The responses totaled more than 200 letters, cards and e-mails and filled two large photo albums.

Many people wrote about what a wonderful father Ray was, others thanked him for being a caring doctor. Most, though, told Nickie and the baby how in love Ray and Helena were.

"I remember coming home from their wedding," Wolfram says. "I said to my daughter, 'This is just one of those things that was meant to be.' They always say that when people get married, they join together and become one but they actually did. They truly loved each other."

This is what Helena tries to focus on when she is in public and has let her mind wander away from Operation Heartbeat, back to her loss.

"I am no stranger to loss, so I probably have a healthier outlook on death. I think about how lucky I am to have had this incredible relationship. That was my love relationship," Helena says, touching her stomach. "Now it's time to be a mother, raise this child and Nickie and dedicate as much time as I can to this project."

Love, Truth and Sunsets

The picture frame in the kitchen was a 40th birthday gift from Ray, given to her a day before he died. For the entire week of her birthday, he traditionally gave her a gift each day. And when Helena told Nickie the news, the third-grader ran out of the room and came back with a wrapped box. "Dad wanted you to have this," he said. It was a heart, of course. A silver heart nightlight.

Helena says she has collected hearts since she was a child and is surprised that anyone would wonder why.

"Because they mean love," she says. "My parents always taught me - and Ray was raised the same way - that if you put out love and truth it's going to come back to you. When I was 29, I thought, 'Yeah, right.' But then I met Ray, and it does come true."

She says she is going to continue teaching Nickie this lesson and has tried to keep up Ray's tradition of appreciating sunsets. There are two photos of sunsets hanging in her dining room. She took one after Ray's memorial service and the other seconds after spreading Ray's ashes at sea. The latter is shot with the sun slightly off-center to the left, orange fingers spreading across the horizon of a bruise-colored ocean.

She says the choppy water calmed to a strange peace right before they spread his ashes and snapped this shot.

"I want people to remember to appreciate every second of life," she says. "We appreciated every second we had together."

For more information about the Raymond Jacobson Memorial Fund call:
(949) 489-4607.

Donor's Hope:

To Salute a Life by Saving Lives Charity:
The wife of a San Clemente doctor who died of cardiac arrest gives away 15 defibrillators.

By Jerry Hicks, Times Staff Writer

At a luncheon Saturday at San Clemente Hospital and Medical Center, Helena Jacobson thanked those who had supported her efforts to raise money for lifesaving devices called automatic external defibrillators (AEDs). But one thank you she added, her voice cracking, was special: "We're going to save lives because of you, honey."

Most there knew whom she meant. Dr. Raymond Roberts Jacobson, who had been the hospital's chief of emergency medicine, was Helena Jacobson's husband. He died of sudden cardiac arrest in January at age 39. Jacobson knew that only a few emergency response teams in her area carried AEDs, which can recharge the heart when someone has suffered cardiac arrest. So in the five weeks following her husband's death, she set out to raise enough money to buy three of them. But her efforts were so successful; she wound up with $40,000, enough to buy 13 of the devices. One more was donated by the manufacturer and another by friends. She didn't hold fundraisers; she just started writing everyone she knew. "Our son Nickie licked the stamps and we'd send out letters everywhere," she said. "Pretty soon I was asked to speak about it to community groups, where we raised more money." Saturday, she turned over 15 AEDs to San Clemente Mayor Scott Diehl. It was a symbolic gesture, because they won't all go to the city. Some will be distributed to state beach lifeguards and deputy sheriffs. Giving one to the municipal golf course was her husband's idea.

Helena Jacobson, director of business development at the hospital, went to a meeting on AEDs late last year. She asked her husband for good places to put them. Don't overlook golf courses and beaches, he told her. He emphasized how important they could be.

Raymond Jacobson was alone when he died. But if someone could have given him CPR, then an AED, his life might have been saved, his wife said. Hospital officials say only 5% to 8% of those who suffer sudden cardiac arrest survive. But that number could double if an AED is available.

An AED is about the size of a briefcase. It includes a device that measures heart rhythms. If the rhythms require an electric shock, the device has a built-in voice that tells the operator whether to apply an electrical charge, which will defibrillate the heart. The voice adds, "Do not touch the patient!"

San Clemente Marine Safety Officer Steve Lashbrook says there are two reasons for the warning. "If you're touching the patient, the machine can't measure the rhythms.

But also, you can get shocked once the electrical discharge begins."

Lashbrook and Steve Long, lifeguard chief for three state beaches in Orange County, said they welcome the AED contributions from Jacobson and her memorial committee members. "It's something we've needed, but they're expensive, and the budget just hasn't allowed for it," Long said. The AEDs cost about $3,500 each. Beginning in August, most CPR training will include instruction in AEDs. Also on hand at Saturday's luncheon were Irvin Blumenthal, an actor, accompanied by a nurse, Shirley Kuzmunich. They know a lot about AEDs. Kuzmunich used one to save Blumenthal's life. It was last year on an El Segundo set for the TV show "Ally McBeal." Blumenthal, who had a small part, suffered cardiac arrest between scenes. By sheer coincidence, Kuzmunich, the set nurse, had an AED that someone had given her as a demonstration in hopes she'd persuade her bosses to buy one. Kuzmunich, fortunately, had received AED training. "The first time we tried it, we got no reaction," Kuzmunich said. "The second time, he came back to us."

The "McBeal" producer, David Kelley Productions, now has four AEDs, to cover all its shows. Another speaker at Saturday's event was Don Diamont, an actor from TV's "The Young & the Restless," whose sister died from cardiac arrest in February. "It can happen to you, a relative, anyone," Diamont said.

A boy's love for his late stepfather keeps his adoption case alive.

April 22, 2001

By TIFFANY MONTGOMERY

The Orange County Register

Eight-year-old Nickie had already picked his new name: Nicholas Frieberg Jacobson. He was waiting for the court to make legal what he already knew in his heart - that his stepfather, Raymond Jacobson, 39, was his father, the only dad he had ever known. But Jacobson, an emergency-room doctor, died suddenly of cardiac arrest Jan. 29, four days before a backlogged and short-staffed Orange County court system completed the adoption investigation and paperwork, a process that in some counties takes four to six months. But in Nickie's case, the investigation, which typically takes a court employee eight to 12 hours to complete, was not started for more than a year. 

Nickie's mother, Helena Jacobson, director of marketing at San Clemente Hospital, does not think her son should suffer, or her husband's dream be denied, because the court is understaffed. So she and Nickie are pressing forward. Their attorney will argue before a judge May 1 that a dead man should still be able to adopt the little boy that he loved. "I want him to be my legal dad," Nickie said. Nickie fell for Ray on Ray and Helena's second date. Nickie, then 5, asked his mom's new suitor, "Is it OK if I call you Daddy?" 

Ray said yes, and then threw himself into the role. He took Nickie fishing, snowboarding, and boating. He taught him how to fix the sink and look after the family's four dogs. When Nickie spent the night with friends, Ray always called there to say good night. Whatever I did, he still loved me," Nickie said. 

Ray filed a petition to adopt Nickie in December 1999, nine months after Ray and Helena married. Nickie's biological father, who had not been involved in his life, agreed to sign away his parental rights. The adoption was important to Ray, said Helena, who now wears her husband's wedding band on a gold chain around her neck. "He wanted Nickie to know he would always be there for him," said Helena, of Lake Forest. "That Nickie was his."

PETITION DELAYED BY STAFF SHORTAGES

Ray had the misfortune, however, of filing his adoption petition at a time when the Superior Court mediation and Investigative Services Department in Orange, responsible for investigating stepparent adoptions, was in crisis. The department had not been able to find or keep two investigators because of a combination of low pay, stringent qualifications and a booming economy, said department director Jan A. Shaw. And when an investigator was on staff, working on cases where a parent's rights were going to be terminated by the court was the first priority, Shaw said. 

In January 2000, a month after filing the adoption petition, Ray's attorney received a form letter from Shaw outlining the problems and apologizing for the delay. "Our future looks more promising in being able to solve past staff shortages and workload challenges," she wrote. But the staffing problems dragged on. Some lawyers, like Orange County adoption attorney Paul Ackerman, complained about the delays. "I don't know why they don't have enough staff to take care of stepparent adoptions, which have become the stepchild of the courts," he said.

At the end of 2000, Shaw decided to pay overtime for court mediators to tackle the stepparent case load, which grows by an average of eight petitions a week. The extra money came from the empty investigator positions. 

In January 2001, a year after Shaw sent the apologetic letter to Ray's attorney, eleven mediators working nights and weekends started working on 70 backlogged cases.

On Jan. 7, a court employee interviewed Ray. On Jan. 29, Ray died. In the midst of her grief, Helena called her attorney to find out what would happen to the adoption. Cynthia Preston, a Laguna Niguel lawyer, was stunned by Ray's death. She wasn't sure what would happen to the petition. "I had never heard (of the situation) before," Preston said.

Attorney Robert Walmsley of Santa Ana thinks a judge could approve the petition under the principal of equitable adoption - meaning an adopting parent and the child shouldn't be penalized because of a premature death when the court delay was not their fault. "You can't just pull any dead guy and have them adopt, but where your nine-tenths of the way down the road ... it adds a different dimension," Walmsley said.

NOT 'A DONE DEAL' BUT PLENTY OF OPTIMISM

On March 26, Nickie and his mom went to a court hearing. They thought the adoption would be approved that day because everyone knew Ray had died, and a hearing had still been scheduled. Even Shaw, of the mediation department who had never seen such a case, recommended that the adoption go forward. But the judge asked Preston to return with legal research supporting their cause, a common practice, attorneys said. Nickie cried in the car afterward. "Why won't they let him be my daddy?" he asked.

A new hearing has been set for May 1. Preston said she has complied some good research. "I can't say it's a done deal, but I'm optimistic," she said. Helena, who became pregnant just before her husband's death, has tried to reassure her son that Ray will be a part of him forever. "No matter what happens," she keeps telling Nickie, "he will always be yourfather."

Donor's Hope:

To Salute a Life by Saving Lives Charity: The Wife of a San Clemente doctor who died of cardiac arrest gives away 15 defibrillators.

By JERRY HICKS, Times Staff Writer

At a luncheon Saturday at San Clemente Hospital and Medical Center, Helena Jacobson thanked those who had supported her efforts to raise money for lifesaving devices called automatic external defibrillators (AEDs). But one thank you she added, her voice cracking, was special: "We're going to save lives because of you, honey."

Most there knew whom she meant. Dr. Raymond Roberts Jacobson, who had been the hospital's chief of emergency medicine, was Helena Jacobson's husband. He died of sudden cardiac arrest in January at age 39. Jacobson knew that only a few emergency response teams in her area carried AEDs, which can recharge the heart when someone has suffered cardiac arrest. So in the five weeks following her husband's death, she set out to raise enough money to buy three of them. But her efforts were so successful;

She wound up with $40,000, enough to buy 13 of the devices. One more was donated by the manufacturer and another by friends. She didn't hold fundraises; she just started writing everyone she knew. "Our son Nickie licked the stamps and we'd send out letters everywhere," she said. "Pretty soon I was asked to speak about it to community groups, where we raised more money." She turned over 15 AEDs to San Clemente Mayor Scott Diehl. It was a symbolic gesture, because they won't all go to the city. Some will be distributed to state beach lifeguards and deputy sheriffs. Giving one to the municipal golf course was her husband's idea.

Helena Jacobson, director of business development at the hospital, went to a meeting on AEDs late last year. She asked her husband for good places to put them. Don't overlook golf courses and beaches, he told her. He emphasized how important they could be.

Raymond Jacobson was alone when he died. But if someone could have given him CPR, then an AED, his life might have been saved, his wife said. Hospital officials say only 5% to 8% of those who suffer sudden cardiac arrest survive. But that number could double if an AED is available.

An AED is about the size of a briefcase. It includes a device that measures heart rhythms. If the rhythm require an electric shock, the device has a built-in voice that tells the operator whether to apply an electrical charge, which will defibrillate the heart. The voice adds, "Do not touch the patient!"

San Clemente Marine Safety Officer Steve Lashbrook says there are two reasons for the warning. "If you're touching the patient, the machine can't measure the rhythms. But also, you can get shocked once the electrical discharge begins." 

Lashbrook and Steve Long, lifeguard chief for three state beaches in Orange County, said they welcome the AED contributions from Jacobson and her memorial committee members. "It's something we've needed, but they're expensive and the budget just hasn't allowed for it," Long said. The AEDs cost about $3,500 each.  Beginning in August, most CPR training will include instruction in AEDs. Also on had at Saturday's luncheon were Irvin Blumenthal, an actor, accompanied by a nurse, Shirley Kuzmunich. They know a lot about AEDs. Kuzmunich used one to save Blumenthal's life. It was last year on an El Segundo set for the TV show "Ally McBeal." Blumenthal, who had a small part, suffered cardiac arrest between scenes. By sheer coincidence, Kuzmunich, the set nurse, had an AED that someone had given her as a demonstration in hopes she'd persuade her bosses to buy one. Kuzmunich, fortunately, had received AED training. "The first time we tried it, we got no reaction, "Kuzmunich said. "The second time, he came back to us." 

The "McBeal" producer, David Kelley Productions, now has four AEDs, to cover all its shows. Another speaker at Saturday's event was Don Diamont, an actor from TV's "The Young & The Restless, "whose sisters died from cardiac arrest in February. "It can happen to you, a relative, anyone, "Diamond said.