The Oregonian
PORTLAND, Ore. — Kevin Sasadeusz was enjoying a relaxing Thursday night out with his teenage son, savoring every moment of a runaway Trail Blazers victory over the Dallas Mavericks, when the unthinkable happened.
Sitting in Section 111 of the Moda Center, toward the Northeast corner of the arena, Sasadeusz heard a commotion and felt a hush fall over the crowd.
“I asked my son, ‘What’s going on?” Sasadeusz said, referring to Eric, a 15 year-old Lake Oswego High School freshman. “He said, ‘It looks like somebody’s hurt.’”
So Sasadeusz twisted around and gazed up. About six rows away, a woman was slumped over in her seat, her head stooped to the side, resting limp. She looked gray.
Sasadeusz, who is an interventional radiologist and trained in CPR, dashed toward the woman to help. She was sitting in the middle of the row and people around her had cleared a little bit of space. As Sasadeusz approached, he noticed multiple fans pressing 911 on their cell phones, and saw another man hovering over the woman, evaluating her.
“He goes, ‘It doesn’t look like she’s breathing,’” Sasadeusz said. “I put my hand on her neck and said, ‘Yeah, she doesn’t have a pulse.’”
The other man, like Sasadeusz, was a doctor, so the two went to work.
It was a cramped area, so the two doctors -- with the help of a third person -- lifted her out of her chair and draped her along the row, resting her body on the arm rests of four or five seats.
“There was really no room to lay her on the floor,” Sasadeusz said. “But we knew the only chance she had was to start CPR.”
Sasadeusz held her head, to make sure her airway was open, and the other doctor started CPR. At one point, a third doctor performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
After a while, as one of them repeatedly pounded on her chest, the woman started gasping, taking short, uncomfortable breaths, a medical condition called agonal respiration.
About this time, a group of EMTs had made their way to the stands. They were toting a backboard, used to carry a person in the throes of an emergency, and they lifted the woman onto the board and carried her down to the court, where they placed her on a gurney.
She was wheeled across the court, directly past the Mavericks players and coaches, and through a tunnel underneath the stands. All the while, one of the doctors from the stands was walking beside the gurney, pounding on the woman’s chest, trying to keep her alive.
Sasadeusz instantly thought of his son and returned to his seat. Unbeknownst to him, the entire arena had frozen. The scene captivated 19,441 fans and a national television audience. The game stopped. Both teams watched in worry. Nicolas Batum and Wesley Matthews covered their mouths with their hands, shocked by the spectacle.
The Trail Blazers later indentified the woman as Sandra Zickefoose, 67, a season-ticket holder since 2011 with her husband, Michael Cowan. They live in Southwest Portland.
Sasadeusz has lived in Oregon for seven years and worked as a physician for 12, but Thursday’s experience was a first for him. Once before, when he was shopping at a supermarket, someone collapsed into a seizure, and he rushed to the person’s aid, keeping them safe until paramedics arrived. But Thursday night was different.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “I was impressed with all the people that jumped in to help. People were calling 911. One guy did mouth-to-mouth while feeling for pulses. It was good to see so many people try to help a stranger.”
Sasadeusz praised the work of the EMTs and the arena staff for arriving quickly to the scene and handling everything appropriately. Unfortunately, his selfless act wasn’t enough. The woman died less than 24 hours after entering Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, according to Lindsay Fitzsimmons, a deputy medical examiner. She was 67.
The news made its way to Blazers’ practice on Friday, hitting the tight-knit team hard. As they watched the scene unfold Thursday night, several players quietly said prayers under their breaths and wished for the best. Afterward, in the locker room, the team did the same as a group.
“It’s sad,” Chris Kaman said. “My heart hurts. Last night, just watching them try to revive her on the court, it’s tough. As a team, we just said a prayer for her in the locker room, and we were hoping for the best. It’s unfortunate. I heard she was a season-ticket holder. I’m not sure. It’s just sad. It’s never a good thing to have something like that happen during a season or at a game.
“It’s unbelievable, actually. It’s crazy. It’s almost surreal to see something like that. It makes you rethink a few things in life.”
Added Batum: “Sad news. I mean, I express ... my sympathy to the family, because that was a tough situation for them. Even for us, during the game, when that happened we feel sad because us, this team, this city, this community, we are a big family.”
And Sasadeusz was suddenly thrust into this family on Thursday. When he made the rounds at work on Friday, co-workers in the office had posted a printout of a picture of him from the scene and scribbled “Our hero” on top. But he downplayed his role in the medical emergency. He wishes he could have done more.
“Everything just starts happening, kind of before your eyes,” he said. “It’s not until afterward, when you think about it and go, ‘Wow, that happened in the middle of a Blazers game.’ It wasn’t really strange until afterward. I just wanted to do whatever little I could to try to help. There were a lot of people that were helping in any way, shape or form they could.
“I wish she would have had a better outcome. But I don’t know what more anyone could have done.”
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