First Aid Corps

Ben Parsons, 30, a full-time firefighter and paramedic for the Whitefish Fire Department, traveled to Blodgett, Ore., for the annual Test of Endurance race on Father’s Day.

He finished strong at the race (11th out of 240 racers on the 50-mile course with 8,200 feet of climbing) and was headed back to his truck to clean up when a friend noticed flames “licking up uncomfortably close” to the awning of a nearby home.

They quickly discovered a flaming barbecue grill sitting on a wood porch attached to the house.

“Unbelievably, there was no one home and no hoses in the yard,” Parsons recalled in a first-person account he wrote about the incident, so he told his friend to run up the street where a firefighter with the Blodgett Volunteer Fire Department was operating a tender for racers to clean up their bikes.

Parsons said he grudgingly called 911, “knowing that we’d most likely get this taken care of before another engine showed up.

Parsons, who still was unwinding from the grueling race, thought everything was under control when his friend called him over again, this time to the fire truck.

Parsons realized the firefighter had collapsed and was in cardiac arrest.

When he found the man had no pulse, he put his paramedic skills into play and asked his friend to make a second 911 call, this time with news that a firefighter had coded.

Parsons “cranked away” on CPR to resuscitate the man while the dispatcher on the 911 line kept asking questions.

Within a couple of minutes an elderly woman arrived on scene with an automated external defibrillator and an airway kit. It was the firefighter’s wife, Parsons soon realized.

He successfully resuscitated the man, had him take some aspirin and made sure the firefighter had stable vitals before handing him off as the medics showed up.

The Blodgett firefighter underwent surgery that night. He called Parsons three days ago to thank him for his help, and informed him he’d had bypass surgery and now has a pacemaker and defibrillator.

Lt. Jamie Hicks told the Chesterton Tribune today that at 1:24 p.m. the CFD was dispatched to the bowling alley Westchester Lanes at 124 N. Eighth St.—just around the corner from the fire house—in response to a report of a full cardiac arrest.

On firefighters’ arrival, a woman whom Hicks identified as the owner’s wife and a nurse was already administering CPR to the victim, a retirement-aged gentleman.

“We took over CPR and then applied the AED,” Hicks said. “We shocked him two times. Then we did more CPR.”

“By the time EMS got to the scene and we loaded the man into the ambulance, he was talking and breathing,” Hicks said.

Hicks also gave full credit to the nurse on the scene. “Early CPR, early defibrillation, that’s the key to saving people,” he said.

77-year-old Robert Monson was behind the wheel of a car that went out of control, clipped another car, crossed into oncoming traffic and slammed into a guardrail on County Road J near Interstate 35E. He had pulled out of the White Bear Township 17 Theatre parking lot, tried to turn and suffered the heart attack about 9:10 p.m..

A handful of good Samaritans who pulled him out of his car, laid him on the street and performed CPR as they waited for an ambulance.

“Myself and the fire department, we’re doing the job we’re trained to do,” said Deputy Rob Wilkinson, the first police officer or rescue worker to arrive at the scene.

“Those good Samaritans didn’t have to stop and help, and they did. He owes his life to ordinary people doing extraordinary things.”

Robert Monson was lying on his back unconscious, eyes wide open but not breathing and without a heartbeat, when Wilkinson and his partner arrived at the scene.

“I knew it was a critical situation,” Wilkinson said

Two men were performing CPR. Wilkinson asked a third bystander to hold a flashlight and another to start setting up oxygen, and then the deputy used an automated external defibrillator shock to the man’s chest.

“The defibrillator analyzed his heart rhythm, advised a shock. It (defibrillator) prompted me to shock him so I pressed the button, shocked him and he suddenly began gasping for air and was restored to somewhat of a normal cardiac rhythm,” Wilkinson said.

Monson immediately gasped for air.

“You could hear the gasping, it was amazing,” Mason said.

An ambulance arrived, and he was loaded in and shocked a second time before being transported to United Hospital in St. Paul, where he remained in the intensive care unit Sunday night.

“They were so good, the response was wonderful,” said Barbara Monson, who said Sunday night she tried to perform CPR on her husband in the vehicle before having to run out and flag people down. “I just flagged them down. … We were lucky the movie was just letting out and another one was starting.”

Wilkinson said the good Samaritans were vital in extending the window of time for the driver’s survival.

“The credit really goes to them,” Wilkinson said. “What they did enabled me to do what I did to save him. It’s a textbook case of what should happen when someone has a cardiac emergency.”

“It’s great to know that people out there care,” Monson said.

“I feel very very lucky, we’ve been married for 55 years, we’ve had a very good marriage, best friends, get along great,” Monson said.

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.

“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.

We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore.

Capt. Jim Hilton, Susan and Ken Anderson (left)

Ken suffered a heart attack after coming in from his usual morning walk.

Susan immediately called 911 at 7:07 a.m. after she noticed he wasn’t breathing very well.

When Hilton arrived at 7:11 a.m, he couldn’t find a pulse.

Hilton started CPR and Susan took over while he got the defibrillator ready. All of the Hampton police vehicles are equipped with the devices.

“I was too scared to even panic,” Susan said.

Once the defibrillator was ready Hilton gave Ken one shock.

“I didn’t watch,” Susan said. “I shut my eyes real tight. I didn’t want to see it.”

They continued CPR until ambulance crew members Lori Ward and Scott Richard arrived at 7:35 a.m. Ken was taken to Franklin General Hospital where he was stabilized by Dr. Brian Hansen and Dr. David Dennis, and then life-flighted to Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa in Mason City.

Ken was at Mercy for 13 days. During that time he was put into a drug -induced coma and had triple bypass surgery. He doesn’t remember much of it.

“I have no recollection of any pain,” Ken said. “I woke up in a hospital not knowing how I got there.”

Today he is doing well and has even started walking for exercise again.

“It’s interesting that I’ve got this new lease on life,” Ken said. “I’m still deciding how to use it.”

We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore. 

Bill Sauer Saved

It all began in July. Bill Sauer had suffered a heart attack and his doctor sent him home with an AED, a portable defibrillator, just in case.

“About one o’clock in the morning I heard him struggling to breathe,” said Bill’s wife Judy. “I tried to wake him, he was unconscious.”

Judy’s son Matt grabbed the defibrillator and the machine talked them through every step.

“It took quite awhile for the ambulance to get there, but I got Bill back,” Judy said.

Sauer gets choked up when he thinks about what could have happened.

“It takes awhile to sink in when you live through that,” Sauer said.

Dr. Ed Arazoza, a cardiologist, at Rochester General Hospital is not only Bill’s doctor but also a friend. He says when he gave him the defibrillator, he didn’t really think Sauer would need it.

“A defibrillator provides an electric shock to restart the heat. If you have an electrical instability, it restores normal rhythm,” . Arazoza explained.

“’We believe defibrillators should be everywhere. We bought one for ourselves, my wife says it’s my lunch box. I think there should be lunch boxes everywhere,” he said.