After 7 years reporting for CBS News in New York, Susan came home to Pittsburgh and joined KDKA-TV last fall.

Susan Koeppen the Survivor

Life was kind of chaotic, but in a good way. She was busy with work, busy with her husband Jim; and especially with their three little kids. On top of all that, Susan had begun training for a half-marathon. She’d just run a 5K in October; and on November 20th, she hooked up with her friends and fellow runners, Gabey Gosman and Beth Sutton. “Hey let’s go out for a couple of miles, do a couple miles on a Sunday morning,” Susan recounts. “Go home, go on with our day.”

It seemed like a good plan — at least until the women were on the home stretch on Negley Avenue in Shadyside. Beth had just asked Susan if she was OK, having noticed that she didn’t look good. “She said ‘ No, no. Old girl’s gonna power through.’ I said alright so we kept running.”

In fact, Beth says Susan surged ahead of her friends; but then, stopped. “[She] put her hands on her knees and kind of bent over like she was trying to catch her breath, then she put her right hand back and kind of sat herself back down on the ground and lay down. And knowing Susan, she’s kinda funny anyways, so I… ran upon her and said , ‘Susan, that was quite a burst of energy you had there,’ and she was gasping for air just like she was winded and out of breath. And I bent over her and I looked down. I said, ‘Do you need some water?’ and she didn’t respond. She was still gasping for air, so I put my arm underneath her back and I lifted her up cause I had a water bottle on my arm and I said – I looked at her again, I said, ‘Oh my gosh, Gabey, there’s something wrong,’ and at that point her eyes rolled in the back of her head and I laid her down and she started to convulse.”

Gabey happens to be a physician — a fertility specialist. As a doctor, she knew this was a serious situation; but it was still hard for her to comprehend. “I think there’s an element of denial because it’s a friend who’s young and healthy, and there’s like a bunch of ‘this is not happening.’”

But it quickly became clear that it was a life or death emergency and they needed help. They flagged down Vanessa Franco and Ranmal Samarasinghe, who pulled over to find Susan in cardiac arrest and turning blue.

As third year medical students, they’d done CPR plenty of times — on mannequins; but never on a human being. “I was taking her pulse and watching her breathe while [Vanessa] was doing the compressions,” Ranmal explained. “And I was just trying so hard,” Vanessa added, “and I kept yelling her name ‘cause someone told me her name was Susan, so I just kept yelling, ‘Come on, come on Susan!’… I was terrified of losing her and I mean, I mean, I don’t know — I just went into automatic mode and just like did everything I could.”

Responding to a neighbor’s 911 call, Lt. Dan Elias’ crew from the city’s Engine 8 arrived. “We jumped out of the rig and pretty much, there wasn’t a word spoken, really.”

Elias took over the compressions, while William Gorham and John Mares hooked up an automatic external defibrillator. They shocked Susan’s heart, right there on the sidewalk; but even after, to Vanessa, it didn’t look good. Maybe she remembered learning that nine out of ten people who suffer cardiac arrest outside a hospital don’t make it.

“I’ve seen people get shocked and suddenly come, you know, have a lot more life to them — and she wasn’t,” Vanessa explained, “and I was like, I was just deathly afraid for her.”

Everyone there was afraid; except for Susan. “It didn’t really happen to me; it did, but it didn’t,” Susan recalled. “I feel sorry for these guys and for my husband. They were with me, she was cradling me in her arms as I was dying — that’s something she’s never gonna forget and she’s not gonna get that out of her mind; and my husband ran to the scene and saw me on the ground. He’s never gonna forget that. They can’t get it out of their minds, but for me it was just black.”

Because she didn’t come to, the immediate fear as she arrived at Shadyside Hospital was brain damage. No one had to explain that to Susan’s husband, Jim O’Toole — himself an M.D. He estimated that Susan’s heart had stopped or been short-circuiting for about six minutes. “The terrifying thing — aside from the whole experience — is when you get outside of five minutes, the potential for severe brain injury goes up significantly ,” Jim added, “and if you get beyond 7 minutes, meaningful recovery is not expected.”

Doctors then began chilling her body — a protective therapy that greatly reduced her need for oxygen.

Her fate would be a mystery for at least 24 hours. “That whole time frame, I have no idea what’s gonna be at the end of it,” added Jim. “I don’t know what her brain function’s going to be — is it going to be Susan or some, some awfully intangible version of her that’s not the woman I married — and that was as tough as anything.”

His thoughts turned to their three children. “I had to legitimately decide or think about whether or not I was capable of being a single father of three, the oldest of which was 6, and having that be a legitimate thought and having to concretely think about that and then think about what the next step would be is not an easy thing to think about.”

As Susan emerged from the therapeutic hypothermia, she gradually became more responsive. Jim was there when her respirator was removed and she spoke for the first time.

She didn’t know she was in the hospital or what had happened to put her there.

“The only word that really explains it is desperation,” Jim said. “I went from that to being the happiest man on the planet, because I realized we had just been lucky enough to survive through something we had no business surviving through.”

“We talk about it a lot, which is actually — is therapeutic, you know.” Susan said — choking up a little. “You know, I have not gotten emotional at all about it, but sitting here with these guys and knowing that, you now, we just went for a run that day. We’re just three moms chugging along and you know, I went down for the count. How does that happen? Wow. But I’m here. Obviously, it wasn’t my time.”

This was not a typical heart attack due to blocked arteries or an unhealthy lifestyle. Doctors blamed it on a heart abnormality Susan knew about. She now has a new little “appliance” in her chest and she’s facing heart surgery to repair a faulty cardiac valve.

Family of Leanne Jackson

Leanne Jackson collapsed two weeks ago in Scoresby while she was walking the dog with her husband, Victoria Police Inspector and Foundation Training manager Glenn Jackson.

Her heart began quivering, preventing blood from pumping to her body and brain.

“It was like the worst feeling in my life, times 100,” Inspector Jackson told the Herald Sun.

Keeping their dog’s leash secured in one hand, he used his other hand to brace her fall.

A cyclist who pulled over to help then held their dog and called an ambulance.

Another couple stopped and helped with CPR, taking instructions from an emergency operator.

“Nothing was working, she was blue,” Mrs Jackson’s sister-in-law Sue Ulbrick said.

Ambulance Victoria Advanced life support paramedic Patrick Donaldson said Mrs Jackson was clinically dead when they arrived.

“We shocked her four times before her heart started beating again,” Mr Donaldson said.

“We had no idea if she was going to pull through or not,” Mrs Ulbrick said.

Last Friday she was taken out of an induced coma.

“Not only was she alive, but she was walking and talking,” she said.

“By Tuesday she was on Facebook.”

MonashHeart director Professor Ian Meredith said ventricular fibrillation was caused by a chaotic electrical rhythm.

“The CPR actually kept her alive by keeping blood flowing to her brain,” he said.

She now has an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator which acts as a pacemaker and defibrillator.

“Without the help of those people who came to her aid, she wouldn’t be here,” Insp Jackson said.

Insp Jackson is desperate to find those who helped save his wife’s life so he returned to Ferntree Gully Rd and held up a sign saying: “Thank you. She lived.”

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.”

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.

“It appeared nobody was driving,” he said. “I got out and ran up to the bus and figured that I would jump in and stop it.”

When Collins threw open the door, however, he found the driver, a 65-year-old Milwaukee man, slumped over without a pulse and two special needs children aboard.

“I stopped the bus and threw it in park,” he said. “Another guy ran up behind me, and we pulled him out and started to administer CPR.”

An Elm Grove police officer was on the scene within minutes of receiving a 911 call, and used a defibrillator to shock the driver’s heart, Police Chief Jim Gage said.

Elm Grove paramedics arrived and took the bus driver to the Wheaton Franciscan Heart Hospital in Wauwatosa while police and bystanders stayed with the children aboard the bus.

“We just kind of tried to entertain them until someone showed up to drive the bus,” Collins said.

A relative of the victim, who has not been identified due to health privacy laws, last reported that he was still recovering in a hospital, Gage said.

“In the end, that’s all that really matters,” Collins said.

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

Dental workers revived Ron Tyler after his car smashed into their office at 4901 Bryant Irvin Boulevard.

Julie Watson the Saviour

“I would have been sitting there. Right there,” said dental hygienist Jessica Weyman, pointing to the front of a car resting on the examination chair in her office. “A few more minutes, there would have been a patient in that chair.”

It was about 8 a.m. when the car rocketed into the dental office of Dr. Gary Pointer.

“Looking out the front door, [I] saw trees, bricks and a car go flying by the front door,” said dance instructor Debbi Jo Utter.

The car went airborne just a step or two from Utter’s dance studio nearby.

“I’m sure the tree, the fence and the pole slowed him down,” said Utter. “He was going fast.”

Office workers rushed to the lifeless driver.

“[I] went back inside and got some gloves,” said dental hygienist Julie Watson. “Came back out and noticed he was unresponsive; had no pulse.”

Watson yelled for someone to bring the automated external defibrillator, or AED.

“[I] put the patches on him and shocked him and started CPR,” Watson said. “Luckily there was an MD at the end of the building, in another office. He came down and took over chest compressions for us.”

“Doing that CPR, you could see the color come back,” Weyman said. “It was pretty amazing.”

It took a number of “pretty amazing” coincidences to avoid any loss of life in the accident.

“This could have been a disaster,” Utter said. “We have 1,500 kids a week coming through this building.”

There were no kids at the dance studio; no one was in the dentist’s chair; and a building full of people equipped to save the driver’s life were right there.

And then there was this bit of luck:

“I’m usually not good under pressure, but luckily I held it together today… and fell apart afterward,” Watson said.

“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.

The efforts culminated with deputies Brent Rechtfertig and Brian Geremia using a defibrillator, according to a San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Department news release.

The two were on a routine patrol of the area about 4:45 p.m. and were near Ducky’s restaurant when radio dispatchers reported that a man had collapsed and bystanders were performing CPR.

According to witnesses, a number of people made an effort to save the man before the deputies arrived.

Geremia took over doing CPR while Rechtfertig used the automatic external defibrillator, a portable device that delivers electric shocks to the heart to restart a normal heartbeat.

Cayucos Fire Department and San Luis Ambulance crews arrived shortly after and took the man to Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center in San Luis Obispo, where he was awake and speaking upon his family’s arrival, according to the news release.

The man’s name wasn’t disclosed.

Ben Hunt of Paso Robles, who was having dinner with his wife, was across the street from the man when he saw him fall to the ground.

“It looked like he was seizing and when I got up to him he was kind-of awake but his eyes were shut and his face was bright red,” said Hunt, who is trained in CPR because he is a psychiatric technician at Atascadero State Hospital.

Hunt said he felt the man’s wrist and couldn’t feel a pulse so he started doing chest compressions.

The man’s wife helped by breathing into his mouth, Hunt said. After a while a woman, who also knew CPR, offered to take over, Hunt said.

“Then we felt a faint pulse,” Hunt added.

He said it was the first time that he had to use his training in an emergency.

“I thought of those situations where people are looking at someone and so in shock that no one does anything,” Hunt said. “And then it just came naturally.”

Hunt, who left without giving his name to deputies, said he called the Sheriff’s Department on Saturday to see if the man was OK.

“I’m just really happy that he is doing okay,” he said.

Howard Grafenstein the Survivor

He is here, his face beaming, eyes dancing, with a wide smile and rosy cheeks, kissing his wife of 48 years, Judy, with boyish tenderness, all because a handful of wonderful people made it their business to save him.

They cared enough to make sure he made it. And they would not give up.

On Tuesday, April 26, Grafenstein, 72, was driving his pickup down Oak Street shortly before 2 p.m. on a routine visit to his dentist’s office when he suddenly blacked out near the railroad tracks and Hubbard Feed Mill.

“I had no symptoms whatsoever.” Howard said. “It’s scary.”

“[My heart] just stopped beating,” he said.

After becoming unconscious, Howard’s pickup veered off the road and struck a nearby home.

His foot was still on the accelerator and the wheels were spinning when he was initially found, according to reports taken by police.

Luckily, Howard had been driving slowly and was wearing a seat belt. He believes he did not suffer any injuries related to the crash.

Two truck drivers from the grain mill saw the crash and called 911.

“The most critical people to start with… would be those two people that made that 911 call, because had they not been there, I would have never made it,” Howard said. “These two guys called 911 right away.”

Alexandria police officers Sergeant Chad Schroeder and Patrol Officers James Ross and Jason Rosha were dispatched to the scene.

Sergeant Schroeder was the first officer to respond.

Howard was not breathing and did not have a pulse when Schroeder found him.

Schroeder pulled him out of the vehicle and performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) until Ross arrived on-scene. Ross assisted with giving him breaths while Rosha prepared the defibrillator equipment.

“The policemen actually saved his life,” Judy said. “The important thing is how soon someone responds and how quickly you get oxygen to the brain.”

What were the officers’ first thoughts when they found Howard?

Officer Ross said, “Your instincts kick in and we go to work on what we are [trained] to do. It becomes second nature.”

The men helped load Howard into the ambulance.

North Ambulance personnel used a defibrillator twice to restart Howard’s heart and took him to Douglas County Hospital. Ross continued CPR in transit.

“It is total teamwork between us and the ambulance crew,” Schroeder said.

After arriving at the hospital, Howard was airlifted to St. Cloud Hospital.

Sergeant Schroeder went to the Grafensteins’ home to tell Judy her husband had been involved in an accident.

“He was so calm,” Judy said of Schroeder.

She praised the Alexandria Police Department.

“I have to tell you – the police department – how really truly wonderful they were.”

Schroeder told her right away that Howard was breathing again and his heart was beating. He said Howard was probably already in the air on his way to St. Cloud for treatment.

Pastor Michael Neumann from the couple’s church, St. Paul’s Lutheran in Alexandria, drove Judy to St. Cloud.

Doctors later determined that Grafenstein, a former Stevens County FSA director, suffered cardiac arrest. Doctors believed the arrest was caused by an arrhythmia because no blockage to his heart was detected.

“Either he’ll come out of it right away and be all right,” she remembered thinking, “or he may come out of it and it may take several weeks of therapy and things to get back to where [he was]. He may not come out of it at all, or it may take days for him to come out of it.”

Twenty-four hours passed before Judy and the physicians knew whether Howard was responding to the treatment.

“There were some scary moments in there,” she said.

But Howard’s condition improved rapidly.

“By that Saturday, he was right back. He knew everything. He knew everybody.”

Howard also had a pacemaker and defibrillator implanted to prevent a similar event from recurring. He spent a total of 10 days in the hospital recovering.

The Grafensteins felt certain God was responsible for Howard’s rescue and recovery.

From the workers in the vicinity of the crash who called 911, the assistance of the police officers, to the availability of the air ambulance, the Grafensteins believe God was watching over them during that time.

“I have never ever seen anybody by that street before,” Howard said of the area where his car rolled off the roadway. “It’s not very well traveled.”

And Judy said: “There’s a whole bunch of kind of little miraculous things that went on through this whole thing because the people were in place every step of the way.”

Judy explained if Howard had been home when his heart stopped instead of out driving, he may not have survived.

“I was out getting groceries and [Howard] would have been alone. His heart would not have started again by itself. It had to have either the CPR or the combination of CPR and the shock to bring him back.”

“Everything – all the stars were in line for Howard that day,” Sergeant Schroeder said.

“Faith is important to me and it makes me think,” Officer Ross said. “You always step back a bit and see how lucky we are to have our health and family.”

BRIGHT FUTURE AHEAD

Howard believes he will make a full recovery and return to working part time as a crop adjustor for RCIS.

He received a “clean bill of health,” from his cardiologist, according to Judy and has started driving again.

“I’ve been out walking and shopping and been visiting and running around and kind of doing a little bit of everything,” he said.

He looks forward to going bike riding soon.

Howard was one of the lucky ones. The policemen told Judy that many times people do not experience such a positive ending.

After coming so close to death, has Howard’s outlook on life changed in any way?

“I always did appreciate everything,” he said.

The couple has three children and six grandchildren.

Judy could not suppress her gratitude for the people who saved Howard.

“I just can’t say enough good about the policemen because they were so kind, so helpful – just so compassionate,” she said. “We just really want them to have credit.”

The officers were glad to learn Howard is experiencing an excellent recovery.

“It is a relief to hear of a good outcome and know that Howard is doing really well,” he said. “It makes you smile when you think about it.”

How does it feel to be called a hero?

“I don’t see it as being heroic at all,” Schroeder said. “We are just doing our job.”

And the couple would like to thank the men that made that first crucial call to 911.

“Whoever those two mystery people were,” Howard said.

Judy called the Alexandria Police Department to personally thank the officers for saving her husband’s life. She asked what she could do for them in return.

Schroeder answered, “Just calling us and thanking us was all you need to do.”

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.