By ARCAN member and author, Marianne Spampinato

Joyce’s more than 68 years of Red Cross service – 48 as a volunteer and 20 as career staff – also includes Junior Red Cross training and certification as a First Aid and CPR instructor, service on the Melrose, Mass. Chapter’s board of directors and development of babysitter course materials.

Norm was a Red Cross trained lifeguard as a teenager and an instructor until he was hired in 1965 as director of Safety Services of the Seattle-King County Chapter where he supported the expansion of Health and Safety Services to include CPR, Youth Services and HIV/AIDS education. 

Both have earned Certificates of Merit for lifesaving efforts.

Nearly seven decades ago, Norm and Joyce Bottenberg began their American Red Cross service on opposite sides of our country. Together their combined 136 years of service – 68 years each – almost equal that of our organization to our country. 

While 8-year-old Joyce knitted lap robes for a veteran’s home in Bedford, Massachusetts, teenager Norm took a Red Cross Lifesaving course and worked as a lifeguard and swimming instructor in Seattle, Washington. 

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“Three colleagues did CPR on me that morning…I’m very lucky to be alive. It was so close.”  – Terry Feheley

“A lot of people are afraid to do CPR – afraid of hurting the person they are helping. My thought was ‘I’m going to sustain life until someone arrives that can bring him back.”  – Chrisi Rogers 

Terry’s Story

We caught up with former Red Cross NHQ communicator, Terry Feheley, now living in Binghamton, New York, to hear about his Red Cross hero who performed CPR until help arrived one morning at Red Cross national headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Terry recalled, “Three colleagues did CPR on me that morning in February 2011. Gosh, it’s been almost 15 years.“Two of the women left the Red Cross years ago, but Chrisi Rogers still works in Human Resources. She and I have kept in touch since I moved home to upstate New York. 

“I don’t remember much about that week. My cardiac arrest happened early Monday morning in the first-floor lobby of the 18th Street building. I was walking over to the cafeteria in the E Street building to get some coffee and passed out. The security guard at the front desk at 18th Street heard me whack my head on one of the heavy brass doors and sounded the alarm."

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