Two men are touting the benefits of CPR training, from both sides – one of the men suffered a heart attack in the work place, but his co-worker’s quick thinking and determination saved his life.
“They told me I had a heart attack, they’re pretty direct at the hospital,” Steven Radtke said.
Radtke recounted the mid-March day when he arrived to work as a commercial painter – that day; he had just arrived on the job site at Riverside Yamaha in St. Albert.
“I remember grabbing my coffee, I remember pulling up for work,” Radtke said – but his memory of much of that day stops at walking in the side door of a building.
His co-workers watched as he collapsed to the ground, and Greg Symbaluk coming to his aid.
“We couldn’t get a pulse, he wasn’t in defibrillation, so he was actually in full cardiac arrest,” Symbaluk, who works at Riverside, said.
Luckily for Radtke, Symbaluk had CPR training, and sprang into action.
“We had to keep his heart pumping and gave him mouth-to-mouth to keep the airways flowing and try to keep him alive until the EMTs got here,” Symbaluk said.
Its quick thinking Radtke is grateful for.
“If he wasn’t there and nobody else knew what to do, I probably wouldn’t be here today,” Radtke said.
In hospital, doctors put a mini-defibrillator next to Radtke’s heart, and he’s taking a mandatory three months off of work – but he plans on learning CPR in the future, so he’ll be able to help others.
“I would encourage everybody to learn CPR, at least one person in the family, and at least one or two people on the jobsite,” Radtke said.
At the motorcycle dealership where Radtke collapsed, they’re taking their own measures to make sure their staff are prepared should something like that happen again.
“Making sure that we’re having a defibrillator on site, and further training for the staff,” Symbaluk said. “You don’t realize what you have until you’ve put it under the gun like that.”
With files from David Ewasuk
