First Aid Corps

Call it a twist of fate.

Victor Giesbrecht, 61, of Winnipeg, stopped his pickup along an interstate highway in western Wisconsin to help two stranded women change a flat tire. Minutes later, his life was in their hands.

Sara Berg, of Eau Claire, Wis., and her cousin, Lisa Meier, were headed home Saturday night on Interstate 94 when they “heard an awful noise.” They were somewhere between Menomonie and Eau Claire when they pulled to the side of the road with a flat tire — something neither knew how to fix. Meier’s husband was on his way to help when Giesbrecht, who was driving by with his wife, Ann, showed up and asked whether they needed help.

“We were so grateful,” Berg said. “Nowadays, nobody ever really stops to offer their help. It’s kind of scary sometimes, because you really don’t know what you’re getting into.”

Giesbrecht is the type who always wants to stop to help a stranded motorist, his wife said. “He’s the type of person who gives you 100 percent and worries about himself later,” she said.

When Giesbrecht finished, Berg thanked him and they shook hands. Berg recalled Giesbrecht’s farewell words to her: “Someone up above put me in the right place at the right time.’”

And then they parted. Giesbrecht and his wife pulled back onto the interstate. Seconds later, Berg followed.

Less than a quarter mile down the road, Berg noticed Giesbrecht’s red truck pulled over. She passed it and then pulled over herself, figuring the couple may have forgotten something.

No sooner had she gotten out of her car when she saw Giesbrecht’s wife waving frantically at passing motorists.

When she saw Berg, she called out: “I think he’s having a heart attack.”

Berg, a certified nursing assistant trained in CPR, jumped into the truck. Giesbrecht had no pulse and wasn’t breathing. Berg began chest compressions. Meier called 911.

Emergency personnel arrived in about five minutes, “but it always feels like forever at a time like that,” Berg said.

Wisconsin state trooper Kate Sampson arrived first, and gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while Berg continued the chest compressions. When two Dunn County sheriff’s deputies arrived, they helped move Giesbrecht out of the truck and to the shoulder, using the vehicle as a buffer from passing traffic. Sampson, along with Meier’s husband, who had just arrived, and the deputy resumed CPR while the second deputy used an automated external defibrillator to deliver shocks to his heart.

“It was a nice twist of fate,” said Fernandes, who is treating Giesbrecht at the Eau Claire hospital. “We know for sure that the CPR the woman did increased his chances for survival.”

Berg pointed out that it was a team effort by several people.

The last few days have been a bit emotional for her and her cousin.

“We both have felt kind of guilty that having helped us caused his health issue,” Berg said. “But people keep telling us that maybe it put us in the right place at the right time when he was going to need help.”

Ann Giesbrecht, who was also part of her husband’s good luck when she guided their vehicle to the shoulder during his heart attack, is grateful. According to a statement issued by Mayo Clinic Health System, she talked to Berg on Sunday and told her, “You actually saved his life.”

Everyone else already was there when she walked in for roll call Wednesday evening.

Not only was Bolingbrook Officer Regalado late, one of her boots was caked with mud.

I wasn’t there, but I’m sure one of the cops teased that she’d better have a good excuse.

Seems like she did.

State police report that Regalado — whose first name is not being released — was driving her own car to work on Interstate 355 near Route 6 when a blue minivan behind her veered across the road, into a ditch and up the embankment.

Knowing something was wrong, Regalado stopped and returned to find the elderly driver slumped behind the wheel of the locked van.

She called 911 but handed the ringing phone to another man who had stopped to help and had him relay information to the emergency dispatcher as she tried to open the door.

All the doors were locked, so she told another passerby to get her riot baton from her trunk.

That man got the thrill of using police equipment to break the passenger side window while Regalado unlocked the doors.

As the two men pulled the man onto some nearby grass, the officer ran to get the CPR mouth shield from her work bag.

“The victim did not have a pulse that either she or the other man who knew CPR could feel,” reports said. “He was unconscious, unresponsive and his lips and mouth were starting to turn blue.”

They continued CPR until a state trooper arrived.

Regalado asked the trooper if he was carrying a portable defibrillator in his cruiser and told him to get it.

“At that time (I) applied the patches on the designated areas on the victim … plugged in the cord to the pads and hit the button to begin,” she reported. The device was able to steady the rhythm of the senior’s heart.

An ambulance took the victim to Silver Cross Hospital where he was listed in stable condition after suffering a heart attack, reports said.

Regalado returned to her car and drove to Bolingbrook.

“(I) contacted the sergeant’s desk to advise him of the situation and (that I) may be slightly late to work,” she said.

She’ll be written up for it.

But it’ll be a commendation.

“The department is very proud of Officer Regalado’s heroic response. It is obvious her training and experience played a great role in possibily saving this victim’s life. We commend her for her efforts,” Lt. Mike Rompa said.

The intersection of Old Hickory Boulevard and Rio Vista Drive has a way of bringing back memories.

“We had just got over the bridge. We had been to get some gas,” said Peggy Poss who was stopped at the light in late May, with her husband Ben behind the wheel. “I looked around at him and he was like this leaning over. I was scared. I knew something was wrong.”

Ben Poss the Survivor

Ben was having sudden cardiac arrest.

“I don’t remember even stopping at the red light,” he said.

Luckily for Poss of all the places to have a heart attack that was probably the best, but it has nothing to do with the intersection, but the people in the cars around him.

NES employees Alan Nelson and Kurt Hellmann were in a truck right next to them that was also carrying an automated external defibrillator (AED). Nelson pulled Poss from the car and administered CPR before Hellmann used the AED to shock Poss back to life, according to spokesman Tim Hill.

“They had him on the ground working with him you know. I was just tore all to pieces,” Peggy Poss said.

The company decided to put defibrillators on 150 of their trucks last spring.

“Mainly we did it for safety concerns for our employees because we are working around high voltage,” said Hill.

They also knew the devices could help the public.

“It makes me feel mighty grateful,” said Ben Poss. “From what I’ve been told I wouldn’t be here today if it hadn’t been for them.”

For Poss, it means a lot more than a second chance. It also means the company he worked at for nearly 35 years came to his rescue.

“It was just ironic that we ended up using it to save the life of a former NES employee,” Hill said.

It’s why, for them, the intersection will never be the same.

“Every time I think about where he was laying, right there in the grass,” Peggy Poss said.

Poss said one day he hopes to meet with the NES crew as well as a Vanderbilt heart specialist who just happened to be there.

An Ottawa police officer is being credited for using a defibrillator to help save a man’s life after a single vehicle collision in Kanata Friday morning.

The police officer, who carries a defibrillator in his patrol car, was first on the scene at Hazeldean Road and Terry Fox Drive just after 6:30 a.m.

The officer found a 56-year-old man unconscious in the driver’s seat. He initiated CPR and then shocked the man with the defibrillator.

Paramedics arrived at the scene minutes later. They say the police officer’s actions were key to saving the man’s life.

“I think it’s fantastic work on the part of the police officer this morning. He responded very, very quickly and put the machine on very quickly, and delivered two shocks,” said J.P. Trottier, spokesperson for Ottawa paramedics.

The man was listed in critical condition in hospital this morning.

Edna Schiller and her teenage daughter were on the way home from a high school band trip to Orlando, when the bus they were riding in pulled over on the highway. A parent asked Schiller to check out the bus driver, who was experiencing strange symptoms.

Edna Schiller the Saviour

Schiller, 53, a nurse for 28 years, discovered that the man had suffered three previous heart attacks, so she called paramedics. The driver wouldn’t go to the hospital, but Schiller insisted that someone else drive the bus, so a parent with a commercial driver’s license drove to Valdosta, where they stopped to eat.

“I was coming back to the bus when the dad who had been driving yelled, ‘Get in here,’ ” said Schiller, a nurse at Henry Medical Center. The bus driver was slumped over and had no pulse.

“We got him out of the bus and onto the pavement and I gave him CPR for six or seven minutes,” Schiller said. “They brought an AED [automated external defibrillator] and I shocked him twice and finally got a heartbeat, and they rushed him to the hospital.”

Schiller said that the experience was scary — even for a nurse with almost three decades of experience.

“I’m a small person, and the driver was big and heavy, so it took every ounce of energy I had to get any air into the man, but it was like I was acting on autopilot,” she said. “When you’re a nurse, you just do what you’re trained to do.”

Schiller later learned that she had saved the man’s life.

“That’s an awesome thing,” she said. “Every morning I ask God to let me make a difference, and most of the time I do, even if it’s just holding a patient’s hand and letting him know I care.”

Schiller worked on medical-surgical floors and in outpatient surgery before moving to the endoscopy unit at Henry Medical Center four years ago. She prepares patients, assists with surgical procedures and helps patients recover afterward.

Schiller credits her mother for inspiring her to become a nurse.

“My mom wasn’t a nurse, but she was a caregiver and always had a big heart,” she said. “Watching her take care of others all those years made me want to take after her in every way.”

Schiller has never left bedside nursing and has no intention of doing so.

“I couldn’t do nursing behind a desk,” she said. “I have to be hands-on, working with patients. Nursing is about caring and giving; it’s a lot of reassurance and compassion.”