MEDINA — Kathy Knox said her husband, Dave, is trying to develop a healthier lifestyle. At 55, the Medina resident is trying to eat better, and this year he started a workout regimen at the Medina Community Recreation Center.
"He's never had a history of heart problems," Kathy said. "He's had high cholesterol, and he's watched his blood pressure, but there's been no problems."
That was before Dave and Kathy Knox started a session in the rec center weight room around 9 a.m. on July 13. As the couple warmed up, he began to feel lightheaded, Kathy said, so he took a drink of water and tried to walk it off.
"He was on the stationary bikes and began to feel lightheaded," Kathy noted. "He did 15 reps on the leg press machine and it continued."
Kathy was on a stationary bike as Dave walked around near the rec center's express check-in desk, next to the lobby entrance to the weight room. She was facing away from Dave when she said she heard a thud, like someone tripping and falling.
She turned and saw her husband face down on the ground.
"I screamed and ran over," she said. "He seemed to be shaking at first, like he was having a seizure."
Dave Knox was suffering a heart
attack that would require emergency triple bypass surgery.
Rec center staff immediately began congregating in the area. Kurt Gehring, the manager on duty, was one of the first at Dave's side.
"I got a call on the radio to come to the front desk immediately," he said. "You could tell by the tone that something wasn't right."
Kathy said Dave tried to stand up, but couldn't. By the time Gehring arrived, he was on his side, moaning, and losing consciousness.
"We rolled him over on his back, and I saw blood on his chin," he said.
The fall had split open his chin and caused him to bite his lip and tongue, Kathy said. As staffers swung into action around her, she held a napkin to his face, trying to quell the bleeding.
Once Dave was on his back, he "stopped fussing," Gehring said. It wasn't a good thing. He tried to get a pulse at his neck. Nothing. Again at his wrist, also nothing. By then, Dave wasn't breathing either.
"He was turning blue around the ears," said rec center program coordinator Heather Cooper, who also tried to find a pulse.
For the first time in a year and a half of operation, the rec center staff had to use the automated external defibrillator, or AED machine, located in a white case behind the front desk.
The machine, one of two at the center, registers a patient's vital signs once it is connected via two electrode patches placed on the upper and lower portions of the abdomen.
"The machine speaks," Gehring said. "Once it registers the vital signs, it says ‘shock advised' or ‘shock not advised.' "
In Dave Knox's case, the trauma to his heart had caused it to begin beating out of rhythm. The machine advised a shock, and Gehring said he told everyone to clear away before administering one electric jolt.
Gehring said the staff is trained to give two rounds of CPR — 15 chest compressions and two breaths each — after a shock is administered.
Aquatics manager Darlene Donkin handled the CPR. She trains lifeguards in CPR, as well as CPR instructors for the American Red Cross. Gehring asked a staffer to page Donkin shortly after he arrived on the scene, he said.
"When I came upon (Dave), he was ashen gray," she said. "You could visibly see he was not breathing."
After the shock and CPR, however, he began to take breaths, she said.
"The AED machine evaluated him a second time, and said a shock was not advised," Gehring said.
By that time, the Medina Life Support Team had arrived, he said. Paramedics rushed Dave to Medina General Hospital.
By the time LST took over, five to seven minutes after the episode began, Kathy and Gehring said Dave had regained consciousness. Dave later said he was initially unaware that staff members had to shock him.
"As they were loading him into the ambulance, he was saying ‘What is this? I have to get to work,' " Kathy said with a chuckle.
Dave Knox is a reporter who specializes in data analysis for the Akron Beacon Journal.
That afternoon, Kathy said, he was transported to Southwest General Health Center in Middleburg Heights, where doctors quickly placed him on the schedule for open-heart surgery the next morning.
By noon that day, he was out of the operating room and recovering, she said.
"I talked to him (Thursday morning)," Kathy said. "He was sitting up in a chair and feeling much better,"
Dave was out of intensive care on Friday and back home by Monday evening. He is facing a four-to-six-week recovery before heading back to work, and said he has begun taking block-long walks near his Smokerise Drive home.
"You ask why I'm here, why I'm out of the hospital and taking walks after less than a week," he said Tuesday. "It's because my heart was resuscitated within minutes. Whoever made the decision to put (an AED machine) in the rec center made a very good decision."
Kathy Knox also credits the quick response and training of the rec center staff for her husband's survival.
"By the time I got to him, there were already three staff members at his side," she said. "Three people were around him, one at his head, two checking for a pulse, another was keeping the crowd back. It is wonderful to have staff so well-trained and well-prepared. They went into action like a machine, and I think they saved him."