First Aid Corps

A 39-year-old woman from Faribault is recovering in Colorado early this week after her heart stopped while she was skiing at Steamboat Springs Ski Resort in Colorado.

View First Aid Corps World Map of AED Locations in a larger map

The woman’s husband says it’s the work of the Steamboat Ski Patrol that saved her life.

Last Thursday, Dion Buhman was riding on a ski lift one chair ahead of his wife and 15-year-old son. At some point, his wife, Tanya, told the teen she felt like she was on the verge of passing out.

The son yelled to his dad for help, then had to hold her up so she wouldn’t fall over. Once they got to the top of the mountain, Dion felt for a pulse from his wife’s heart, and there wasn’t one.

He started CPR, the ski patrol was notified and several emergency responders were on the scene within just a few minutes.

The Steamboat Springs Ski Resort is equipped with 14 automated external defibrillators around the mountain, and three of them made their way to Tanya Buhman. The machines are used to essentially shock the heart back into a normal rhythm.

They restarted her heart before getting her off the mountain and to a local hospital.

Tanya Buhman’s heart went into lethal arrythmia, and she has no idea why. She’s had no prior heart problems and no signs of something this serious on the horizon. Doctors in Colorado plan to install an internal defibrillator in her heart so it can’t happen again. She is also currently fighting pneumonia as a result of the incident.

Dion Buhman and the rest of the family are staying in Colorado this week until Tanya is healthy enough to fly back to Minnesota.

Mary Lundvall had gone into cardiac arrest while getting ready for church. She had collapsed in front of her daughter, Shonna, in an upstairs bedroom.

Mary Lundvall (centre) the Survivor

As if watching your mother go into cardiac arrest isn’t traumatic enough, this happened on Mother’s Day.

When she dialed 911, Shonna was so hysterical that dispatcher Charity Stewart had trouble understanding what she was saying.

Police Sgt. Joe Baird and officers Derek Weinhardt and Tim Vogt were first on scene. Before rushing inside, Vogt grabbed a defibrillator and medical bag from his trunk.

The officers quickly went to work. Weinhardt checked Lundvall’s pulse while Vogt hooked up the defibrillator.

Meanwhile, Baird took Shonna downstairs to try to calm her down.

When Officer Brian McColley showed up, he took Lundvall’s husband, Dennis, aside so the other officers could work. Dennis had been performing CPR when police arrived.

Vogt delivered a shock and within seconds Lundvall had a faint pulse. That’s all it took. The shock had revived her. Soon she was conscious and alert, and by the time an ambulance arrived, Lundvall was talking.

She was rushed to Campbell County Memorial Hospital and later flown by air ambulance to a hospital in Billings, Mont. Vogt stayed by her side right up until a Life Flight airplane whisked her away.

Afterward, Lundvall thanked Vogt, telling him he went “over and above the call of duty.”

In his 18 years in law enforcement, Baird never saw an unresponsive patient snap back as quickly as Lundvall did. When he heard her talking, he almost went into cardiac arrest himself, he joked.

“It was a miracle,” Baird said.

Today, Lundvall is healthy and grateful, especially for the officers who helped save her life.

“God was definitely with us,” Lundvall said.