“It was a normal Sunday,” Dan Horgan recalled. “We got up, read the paper, made waffles.”
Dan doesn’t remember much more than that.
“He was down at the end of the counter paying bills,” said Lori Horgan, wife of 28 years. “I said something and there was no response. I said something else and there was still no response. I looked up and there he was lying on the counter.
Lori said she thought he was being funny “because he had joked earlier about how the bills were going to kill him.”
She quickly realized Dan wasn’t kidding, though. After she labored to get him down onto the floor, she took his pulse and came up empty-handed. His heart had stopped beating.
Lori then called 9-1-1 and began giving him CPR as she waited for help to arrive.
She estimated it was no more than five minutes before Chaska Police Officer Brady Juell was at their door.
Juell used the AED ( automated external defibrillator )to give Dan a couple of jolts to restart his heart.
Not long after, an ambulance arrived to transport Dan to Ridgeview Medical Center in Waconia where he was stabilized before heading to Abbott Northwestern.
Instead of waking up two days after his cardiac arrest, it took Dan a week to come around.
Since August, his recovery has been speedy. A week after waking up, Dan was discharged to home to regain his strength. He was back full-time to his job as a computer technician just after Labor Day.
While the physical recovery has been challenging, wrapping his head around what happened to him has also been difficult for Dan. He has trouble holding back the tears when he thinks about what Lori and his family went through the week he was in a coma.
“It’s always there, in our minds,” said Lori.
Dan is also thankful for the quick response of the Chaska Police. “By golly, if I get pulled over by that man, I’m gonna get out and hug him,” he said.
“[Juell] was just doing his job, but he saved a life that day,” said Lori. “I’m thankful to be here,” said Dan. “I’m thankful for everything. I’m thankful to be able to go get a tree and just (pause) just to be here.”
Now, with their new lease on life, the Horgans are enjoying every day together. There are only two rules Lori has forced upon Dan.
“He can’t sit at that end of the counter and he’s not allowed to pay bills on Sunday,” she said.
