5 receive awards for saving man's life

The group formed a human chain of survival.
By JEANNE STARMACK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
CANFIELD -- Jim Kellgreen knows he's a lucky guy.
Yes, he had a severe heart attack that could have killed him. But he also had on his side that day, April 4, 2005, a determined and efficient group of people who worked hard to get him the help he needed.
Even though those people say they never expected to be honored as heroes, that's exactly what the Canfield Heartsaver Awareness Program did, gathering them together for a ceremony Thursday in Canfield City Council chambers.
There, Kellgreen himself presented them with engraved crystal trophies.
Don Hutchison, assistant chief of the Cardinal Joint Fire District and the leader of the heart program, explained Friday how each of them was a link in what the American Heart Association calls the Chain of Survival.
Each played a role
Herman Stack of Canfield ran for help after Kellgreen, of Boardman, collapsed outside one of the fairground buildings, Hutchison said. Bob Rimbey of Canfield, who is Kellgreen and Stack's co-worker in the maintenance department, called 911. Lori Jordan of Austintown, a cleaning-service provider, and Billy Arnaut, chief of the Canfield Fairgrounds Police Department, started CPR. Judy Heaven, a secretary in the fairgrounds office, ran to get the office's automatic external defibrillator.
Arnaut shocked Kellgreen one time, and he came back, Hutchison said.
And so the chain of survival -- recognizing a problem and calling 911, initiating CPR, early defibrillation, and rapid access to advanced life support -- came alive in five people.
Completing the chain was the fire district, which arrived very quickly, members of the group said.
Adding to Kellgreen's luck was the fact that the fairgrounds had just received the defibrillator through the heart program three months earlier. Arnaut and Heaven were in a class around that time offering training on CPR and how to use the machine, Heaven said.
Stack and Rimbey said they did not attend the class. Nonetheless, everyone moved fast and did everything right for Kellgreen on the day, he said, his "lights went out."
He, Stack and Rimbey sat in the maintenance building at the fairgrounds Friday at lunch time and remembered what happened.
Kellgreen, working with Stack, had bumped an overhead heater while putting a tractor away in the commercial building. A gas line was broken, so the men set about fixing it. Kellgreen said they got a ladder and were going to put a pipe plug in the broken line. He doesn't remember anything else until he woke up in the hospital two days later.
Stack said he told Kellgreen it would be a good idea to go outside and get some air.
Then, he turned around. "I looked back and all I could see was Jim sliding down the ladder and his eyes rolling back," Stack said. He ran for help and found Rimbey, who called 911.
"People in the [fairgrounds] office wondered why Hermie was running around like that," Kellgreen said.
So Jordan and Heaven came over to help.
Heaven said Stack had seen Arnaut's truck at the office and had run in to get him. Arnaut was already working on Kellgreen when she arrived and asked him if he needed the AED, she said.
"So everyone was where they were supposed to be," she said, in another tribute to Kellgreen's luck.
Defibrillator
The AED, Arnaut said, was easy to use. Voice-activated, it tells the user exactly what to do in each step. Arnaut also said he had CPR training during his career as a police officer in Youngstown.
The machine, worth $9,000, was donated to the fairgrounds by the heart program. The money to buy it was donated to the program by Youngstown Eagles Club, FOE No. 213. The club also received an award Thursday.
The honorees said Friday they were glad to help their friend and did not expect thanks.
"He'd do the same for me," Stack said. "We're like family down here."
starmack@vindy.com