First Aid Corps

A few short months ago, the odds were heavily stacked against her survival and her chances of resuming a normal life; but as KDKA-TV News Anchor Susan Koeppen returns to work at the anchor desk for the first time since November, she’s sharing her story in the hopes that it may inspire more people to learn what to do to save a life.

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.

A MELBOURNE woman who was clinically dead for almost 20 minutes was saved by first aid-savvy strangers.

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.”

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.

Matt Collins was on his way to a business meeting when he saw a school bus drift aimlessly through the intersection of Elm Grove and Bluemound roads just after 8:30 a.m. Sept. 15.

“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.