By John Osborne
Naples Daily News
Copyright 2008 Naples Daily News
LEE COUNTY, Fla. — Lazarus rose from the dead with the help of Jesus. Last year, Tom Schulenberg of Silver Creek, N.Y., did much the same — thanks to the dedicated team of Emergency Medical Technicians who refused to give up on him after he’d suffered a massive heart attack in his rented Cape Coral home and a doctor advised the medical workers that they could stop their life-saving efforts.
Tears in his eyes, Schulenberg finally got the chance to thank one of his heroes on Friday afternoon. The former police vounteer embraced Lee County paramedic Scott McDill hard and struggled to find the words.
“Thank you, just thank you,” Schulenberg finally choked out, voice cracking with emotion. “I don’t know what to say.”
McDill, a 30-year veteran EMT, just hugged his former patient back.
“Your being here today is thanks enough,” McDill said. “By the way,” he added, “you’re looking a whole lot better than the last time I saw you.”
The last time McDill saw Schulenberg was shortly after he collapsed to the bathroom floor on March 30, 2007. Schulenberg’s wife, Barbara, remembers the terrifying moment like it happened yesterday.
“He was getting ready to go the breakfast, and then he just dropped,” she recalls. “I reached out to grab him, but he was too big for me and he just hit the floor. Then was gone.”
Barbara Schulenberg said she started screaming then, which alerted a neighbor that something was wrong. Racing over, the neighbor, whose wife is a registered nurse, began CPR, continuing his efforts for about a minute until the ambulances arrived.
Enter Scott McDill and his team of lifesavers, which included fellow EMT Jodi Plimpton. Working feverishly on the man for more than 30 minutes – CPR, drugs, artificial breathing – they were eventually authorized by the emergency room physician on the phone to give up.
McDill and his team had other ideas. Ten frantic minutes later, the first sign of life. That’s when they finally whisked their patient off to Cape Coral Hospital, where he eventually made a full recovery, without any brain damage.
“I emptied everything in my bag for the first time ever while I was working on him,” McDill recalls. “New drugs, old drugs…you name it.”
Eventually, it was an old drug that turned the trick.
“We finally started getting signs of life when we began the lidocaine drip,” McDill said. “Boy, am I thankful that I took that out of my bag.”
Not half as thankful as Schulenberg, though.
“I’m just grateful to Scott and the other EMTs,” he said. “If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be here today.”