Show a house, save a life

By Susan Doran

Broker Andrew Wood was showing clients Steve Pinney and his wife Judy a century home in the scenic rolling countryside of Ontario’s Kawartha Lakes region last fall, when Steve suddenly fell to the floor and turned blue.

Had Wood not been there, the next 14 minutes might have gone in a wholly different direction than they did, says Judy.

“Without Andrew, I don’t know what I would have done,” she says. “He was cool as a cucumber.”

Steve – 56 years old, weighing more than 300 pounds and previously reasonably healthy – was having a heart attack. He is diabetic and had complained of feeling a bit “off” minutes before, and paused to take a couple of sugar pills. But other than that he appeared just fine – no sweating, no complaints of chest pain, no weakness in the arms, nothing at all out of the ordinary, says Wood, who is with Royal LePage Frank Real Estate in Whitby, Ont.

In fact, Judy says that in the car on the way over to view the house, he had stressed how great he felt. They had all strolled around the outside of the property and then taken their time viewing the inside, being careful, as instructed by the listing agent, not to let the cats out.

But not long after climbing the steep and narrow stairs to the second floor and taking the sugar pills, Pinney “started shaking and fell over backwards,” says Wood. “It happened so fast I didn’t even have time to get his head. It hit the floor.”

Pinney himself recalls nothing of the incident, and in fact does not even remember being in the house.

Andrew Wood (Photo by Marko Shark)

Wood immediately dialed 911 on the home’s land line rather than using his cell phone. That was the first right step he and Judy made in a series of good choices, emergency response experts say.     Cell phone reception can be iffy, especially out in the country. Using a land line, they were ensured a reliable connection throughout their ordeal. And by calling 911 immediately, they set the stage for the speediest possible rescue response and top-notch, up-to-date resuscitation instruction while they waited.

“I want to emphasize the importance of dialing 911 before starting CPR, even if you’ve had training,” says Wood.

The call was transferred to the area’s Central Ambulance Communication Centre (CACC), where operator Margaret Thurston calmly coached the pair on how to perform ongoing CPR.

Wood communicated with the operator, passing the information along to Judy and sometimes holding the phone to her ear while she did chest compressions as instructed, with Wood counting them out. At various points Wood put the phone down and held Steve’s nose or did compressions while Judy performed mouth-to-mouth.

“Time went out the window,” says Wood.

Neither he nor Judy had performed CPR before, although Judy had taken some training in it years before.

When fire fighters, paramedics and police arrived they found that although Pinney still wasn’t breathing, he did have a pulse – which they credit to the efforts of Woods and Judy, who had managed to keep blood flowing through his body. Not long afterwards, Steve was stabilized and moved to hospital.

Today he is back on his feet and says he is “so grateful” to be alive and well. Not surprisingly, he and Judy took a pass on the home where the trauma took place. But they did buy another one, using Wood as their agent.

As for Wood, he is relieved he made the right decisions during the emergency. He says he acted on instinct.

“Afterwards, you don’t feel like a hero – you’re just glad you could help,” he says. “The critical thing I learned is you need to act quickly. Every minute counts. It’s important to make people aware of how fast things can happen…

“We agents get in all kinds of situations. We don’t usually know the health of our clients – it’s good to find out if you can. And there should be a real estate credit course on life-threatening incidents and how to handle them. CPR training would be helpful,” he says.

Wood says he plans to take CPR himself and to educate the people in his office about it.

“If you’re not calm in an emergency, you’re not making the right decisions,” he says. “The (emergency services) operator was so good, so calm, so encouraging.”  

Wood was immensely impressed with the entire emergency medical services team, comprised of local and provincial 911 communication resources, local firefighters and the co-ordinated efforts of the Durham and Kawartha Lakes EMS paramedics. He wrote a glowing letter to the chief of emergency services in Lindsay, Ont., validating emergency response volunteers. These services are being discontinued in many communities across Ontario, he says. 

In November, both Wood and Judy Pinney received Star of Life Awards from Kawartha Lakes Fire and Rescue, as well as certificates of recognition from the city of Kawartha Lakes and plaques of thanks from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario

During the awards presentation, Ron McMillan, Kawartha Lakes EMS supervisor of quality assurance, said that Steve Pinney’s good news story is unfortunately not common in the community, but that the system does work if 911 is called immediately and CPR response is begun when dealing with cardiac arrest. The best “save rates” for sudden cardiac arrests are in communities where a relatively high percentage of the population (50 per cent or more) has some CPR knowledge, McMillan says.

“Our work in this area is only beginning,” he says, noting that the Kawartha Lakes region is now a leading Ontario community for Public Access Defibrillator sites.

Further education and training initiatives are gearing up to make stories like Steve Pinney’s the norm rather than the exception, he says.

In the photo:

Steve Pinney (centre) collapsed while viewing a house shown by broker Andrew Wood (front, second from left). Wood and Julie Pinney (front, second from right) performed CPR on Pinney until paramedics, police and firefighters arrived on the scene. Everyone involved reunited recently as Wood and Julie received Star of Life Awards. (Photo by Catherine Whitnall, Kawartha Lakes This Week)