A scary incident for a Choiceland couple is highlighting the importance of quick intervention in a medical emergency.
Glen and Connie Kelsey were enjoying a Saturday at their Candle Lake cabin on Jan. 16.
“Glen and I had a normal day,” Connie explained.
“We’d gone snowshoeing snowmobiling, Glen had gone ice fishing, and felt fine.”
After they got back, Glen said he didn’t feel well, that he was kind of nauseated and wanted to lay down.
Connie went in to check on him and he was covered in sweat and holding his chest.
“I knew from a thing I’d seen or heard on the radio that during COVID, to not be afraid to seek medical attention and that if someone is having a heart attack you should chew two aspirin and call 911.”
Minutes later, Debbie Hunter, Glen and Connie’s Candle Lake neighbour, arrived. She’s a member of the Candle Lake first responders.
The group receives first aid training and some basic equipment in order to respond to emergencies right away while they wait for an ambulance to arrive.
It takes about an hour for an ambulance to reach Candle Lake from Prince Albert, precious that could make the difference between life and death.
Hunter made it to Glen within seven minutes. Not long later, two more first responders arrived. One of them came equipped with an automated external defibrillator or AED.
While they were on scene, Glen’s heart went into what’s called ventricular fibrillation. It’s when the ventricles of the heart quiver instead of pumping normally, due to disorganized electrical activity. It’s a serious cardiac rhythm disturbance that can result in death.
“When that happens, you go unconscious,” explained Parkland Ambulance director of communications Lyle Karasiuk.
“Without … the administration of an electrical current, the heart doesn’t have the opportunity to stop A shock stops the heart and, if it’s strong enough, allows it to, basically like a light switch, reset itself and start to beat on its own.”
In Glen’s case, the defibrillator sent the shock and his heart began to beat normally again.
By the time paramedics arrived, he was alive and awake.
Karen Mack was one of the Candle Lake first responders who arrived on the scene.
“It was exciting when the AED said ‘no shock advised.’ We know you got back into your rhythm,” she said in a Zoom call Wednesday with the first responders, Karasiuk, Glen and Connie and members of the media to kick off heart month.
“We were jumping up and down, clapping, cheering — I don’t think that’s very professional but we didn’t really care. We were just happy.”
With Candle Lake being so small, the first responders said one of them knows the individual about 70 to 75 per cent of the time. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always end well.
“After Glen and Connie left in the ambulance on their way … it was jubilation,” Mack said.
“We do come across a lot of bad situations where the patient does not survive. This one was different. It was all because we have our training, we work well together, we have our machines and we were just doing what we were trained to do.”
Since the January incident, Glen is doing well. He had stents put in and continues to recover. He has gone back to walking around and is returning to some of his normal activities.
For Karasiuk an event like this underscores the importance of knowing CPR and having an AED accessible.
“Having an AED is likely what restarted Glen’s heart in a significant way, allowing him to be alive and away when our paramedics arrived,” he said.
But more importantly, it was the professional care of the first responders — who serve as volunteers on top of their regular full and part-time jobs — that made the difference between life and death.
“We live one hour away from the city. To have people out here who are willing to give up their time to take care of their neighbours is really, really important,” Louise Tarasiuk, the third responder on the scene, said.
“We are taking care of our community. Because of the training provided to us by Parkland staff … it was very successful this time around.”
It’s that drive to help that led Mack to become a responder.
“If we didn’t have first responders in Candle Lake, what would we do for help? there’s a need for us in communities so far away from hospitals and doctors. We can help in this little way of taking the training and being on call for anybody who needs us,” she said.
If we weren’t here, there would be a few less people.”
Glen and Connie are certainly grateful the responders were there.
“I remember waking up on Monday morning and walking around and feeling like nothing happened,” Glen said. “A near-death experience is not something you can take lightly. I can remember the near-death experience because of all the help I received … and everybody along the way.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you, I’m just so grateful,” Connie said.
“He would not be here if it wasn’t for you.”
