Thanks to some Scout training and quick action by his son, John Jensen is alive and recovering from a cardiac arrest that could have claimed his life March 4.
John's 19-year-old son Paul was helping him put up some stairs while doing renovations at their Wilson Creek home that Friday.
"We were working and we were just about to put the stairs up," Paul recalled. "We went to go pick them up and he just kind of fell down. I didn't know if he tripped or fell down, but he wasn't really responding at all. So I ran to his truck and he had a little bottle of nitro."
The nitroglycerine had been prescribed to John after he suffered a heart attack nearly 13 months earlier. It was supposed to help keep his heart pumping in the event of another heart attack, but when Paul sprayed it into his dad's mouth, it did nothing.
"So I dialed 9-1-1 and they told me to flip him on his back and move everything away from him they said I had to just do CPR until the ambulance came, and I did," Paul said.
He called on his knowledge of first aid training from the Boy Scouts and listened to the 9-1-1 operator's commands while waiting for what he says "felt like an eternity" for help to arrive.
"[The 9-1-1 operator] said I did 600 to 800 chest pumps I did three breaths in the mouth, but it wasn't that he wasn't getting oxygen through his lungs, it was that his heart had stopped, so I didn't really have to do that as much. I just had to make sure his heart was pumping up with blood," Paul said.
Soon paramedics, fire fighters and police officers responded to the 9-1-1 call, relieving Paul of his duties and telling him he "did a great job."
Those vital minutes Paul spent doing CPR kept John alive until help could arrive. John was taken to St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver where he spent two weeks recovering and then underwent surgery to fit him with a pacemaker. Now he is back home with his family, recovering fully from surgery and working half days. He says he feels great and that he owes his life to his son.
"He's my hero, absolutely. He saved my life," John said.
The father and son say the free first aid training provided to them when John was a Scout leader and Paul was a Boy Scout was instrumental in Paul being able to keep his cool and properly deliver CPR to his father.
Although the 9-1-1 operator explained what to do, Paul thinks he probably wouldn't have compressed his father's chest far enough to do any good if he hadn't taken the training.
John says he and his entire family will take a first aid course again soon because he has seen first hand its value. He would like to thank all of the first responders and the 9-1-1 operator for the part they played in saving his life.
"I am very thankful to everybody who helped save my life. I was almost a goner," he said.
