George Andren, Tucson, AZ – 57 at time of event (2004)

Of all the places, and all the times for Colonel George Andren (ret.) to suffer a life threatening event, it was not supposed to be his son’s graduation dinner in Columbus, OH. This thirty year veteran had seen service in the Middle East during wartime, not to mention the countless hours spent flying missions in his C130 workhorse. Just over a year of retirement and this new civilian’s life was nearly brought to a close by a sudden cardiac arrest.

Drew White, Michigan City, IN – 29 at time of event (2007)

I was asked by a friend in the summer of 2007 if I might be interested in officiating YMCA basketball games over the winter. Not having officiated a basketball game since I was in college over seven years ago, I thought about it and thought it might be fun to pull out the whistle and have a go at it. The exercise, not to mention the money, would be good for me.

Erick Itoman, Pittsburgh, PA – 33 at time of event (2006)

On May 13, 2006, I suffered what is known as “shallow water blackout.”
At the time of the accident, I was in the middle of an Internal Medicine Resident at the University of Hawaii. There were three of us that day. Greg Sakamoto an Internal Medicine Prelim Resident (whom is now doing Dermatology at Harvard), Kalani, an experienced diver (friend of Greg), and me.

Doug Chrisman, 18, Hyde Park, NY – 18 at time of event (2008)

Monday morning, 7:30am, Doug was busy skimming the stock in preparation for that day’s class. The stock didn’t make it. Doug did. His classmates at the CIA (The Culinary Institute of America that is) saw the freshman from Missouri collapse, and one of them ran to get the nurse. The chef called the Safety Office and an AED was immediately brought to the scene. Doug was unresponsive and his pulse had disappeared, his face was turning blue — they only had minutes before he would die.

Todd Black, Seattle, WA – 56 at time of event (2008)

Todd is an avid Randonneur, that is he likes to get on his bicycle and leave town for an extended trip. This is called a Randonnée, which is a French word that means excursion or long journey. Randonneurs do not compete exactly, they think of it as more a test of endurance, self-sufficiency and developing their bicycle touring skills. Just the pronunciation is difficult enough, let alone cycling over several hundred miles in a specified time period!

One Sunday morning last month, Marty, Todd’s wife, got a phone call to say he had fallen off his bike. She put her head down on her desk and cried. This was the second time she had received a call from the paramedics. That first time it had been nearly midnight in Spring, and she learned that, although Todd hadn’t broken any bones, he had suffered some serious damage. This time she expected something bad had happened, but not this bad.

Paul Rittenhouse, Northport, NY – 45 at time of event (2005)

One warm Friday summer afternoon, Paul was on his way to get a new gadget for his sailboat. He’d just revitalized a 22 foot Ensign sailboat and needed a tension gauge to check the mainstays. He didn’t make it. Instead he crashed the car. It wasn’t exactly his fault, he was clinically dead at the time he collided with a tree on the side of the road, just outside the fire station and opposite a supermarket. The impact was not enough to deploy the airbags, but it did total his Jeep. Paul doesn’t have any recollection of the accident, nor much of the week in hospital afterwards. He knows what happened because he stays in contact with the witness who saved his life.