Heart attack makes unlikely hero

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BY JEFFREY HAGE jeff.hage@lee.net
Wednesday, December 22, 2004 10:28 AM CST

EAU CLAIRE -- Bob Reise doesn't remember the day Bob Leidholdt entered his life. It's a day Leidholdt will never forget.

Call it fate that brought the two men together on an Eau Claire Christmas tree lot on a warm Dec. 4 morning. Or call it a divine intervention.

But because of their chance meeting, Reise will be home on the south side of Eau Claire on Christmas Day, cooking his traditional holiday dinner for a family that was changed forever by a Chippewa Falls man.

Reise suffered a massive heart attack while picking out his Christmas tree in a church parking lot at 2112 Rudolph Road that Saturday morning. He had just loaded his tree onto the roof of his car when his heart stopped. Reise fell to the pavement.

That's when Leidholdt happened to be driving by the church on his way back from work at the McPhee Center on the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire's upper campus.

Leidholdt wasn't supposed to be in Eau Claire that day. The UW-Eau Claire maintenance man was called into work because of a malfunctioning dryer in the athletic department's laundry department.

The university's hockey coach had called because the team's socks were locked inside the dryer. The team had a game that afternoon and needed the socks as part of their uniform, Leidholdt recalled.

"I got there, opened the dryer and we got the socks out. I was there about a total of 10 or 15 minutes," he said.

On his way home he passed the Christmas tree lot at the church where Reise has bought a tree for almost 20 years.

Leidholdt always looks towards the church on his way home. He likes the Christmas trees on the lot, and the quirky messages of faith on the church sign always seem to make him smile.

But that morning something was different. He saw a man on the ground. A higher power made him turn his vehicle around to offer a hand.

It was a U-turn that saved Reise's life.

"He had been found pulseless and not breathing on the ground by his vehicle," said Deputy EMS chief David Gee of the Eau Claire Fire Department.

Leidholdt had been trained in CPR about four years ago through his maintenance job. He immediately began recalling in his mind the steps to CPR and put them into action.

"I began the CPR but was having a hard time getting any air in," Leidholdt said. "That's when I thought he might be choking, so I got him up and gave him the Heimlich maneuver."

That's when Reise's airway opened and he began taking in some air.

Not too long afterwards, Eau Claire police officer John Rush arrived. He took over chest compressions, allowing Leidholdt to concentrate on mouth-to-mouth.

"I was getting tired but I could hear sirens in the background as I continued CPR, so I knew the EMTs would be taking over soon. I remember thinking, 'Thank God for that,' " he said.

Eau Claire medics arrived about three minutes after receiving the call. But it was those three minutes prior to their arrival with Leidholdt working the scene that were critical in saving Reise's life, Gee said.

"The early recognition and citizen CPR saved this person's life," Gee said.

However, Reise's survival was no simple matter. Based on the amount of time Reise had been on the ground before CPR was started, his chances for survival were 50 percent at best, and declining rapidly, Gee said.

EMTs shocked Reise with a defibrillator four times. He flat-lined under the care of the EMTs once while going in and out of ventricular fibrillation, Gee said. Medics put a tube done his windpipe and gave him three cardiac drugs: Epinephrine, Lidocane and Atropine.

Dr. Steven Cook of Chippewa Falls cared for Reise in the emergency room of Sacred Heart Hospital, Gee said.

"This was a unique thing," Gee said. "All the links in what we call the 'Chain of Survival' were present and worked in this case.

"From Leidholdt performing CPR to the early 911 call, police helping with compressions, EMTs shocking him with the defibrillator and administering three cardiac drugs and great care at the hospital -- it all worked," Gee said.

Reise stayed under the care of doctors at Sacred Heart Hospital for four days before being transported to St. Joseph's Hospital in Marshfield on Wednesday, Dec. 8. Two days later, he received an internal defibrillator that monitors his heart.

He returned home the next day, on Saturday, Dec. 11, one week after a stranger saved his life.

Reach Jeffrey Hage at jeff.hage@lee.net.