Fridley High School was playing Simley on a Thursday night, December 13, 2007 in St Paul, MN. There were five minutes left in the game, when the 49-year-old referee, Dale Wakasugi, suffered a cardiac arrest.

“I went down, bam, and it was lights out. I don’t remember a thing, but a 16-year-old girl from the high-school ran out of the stands and started CPR,” Dale said in awe. The girl with the fortitude was 11th-grader Lindsey Paradise. “Lindsey was on me in seconds.” Dale confirmed. As more people gathered to help, someone grabbed an AED from the wall of the gymnasium. They attached the defibrillator to Dale’s chest and checked to see if it registered a pulse. The voice prompt announced that it was a shockable rhythm.

“She hit the button, one shock and I was back to life!” Dale exclaimed. They are best of friends now, even having family dinners together. Lindsey had learned how to perform CPR and use an AED just three weeks earlier in health class. She even used a disposable mask from her purse, left over from the course!

“My total save took less than two minutes. Right there on the gym floor. They started CPR right away, and somewhere between the two and three minute mark they shocked me.” Dale said. “I have to take their word for it, but apparently when I woke up I asked ‘Did I finish the game?” He has no reason not to believe them...

“I don’t remember a thing. But the paramedics said I was talking to them in the ambulance.” Dale had three stents inserted in his cardiac artery, and three days later he was home recuperating when he started feeling sick. “I was feeling a pressure in my chest, and my wife asked ‘Are you okay?’ I said ‘I don’t think so.’ She called 9-1-1.”
Dale had suffered a heart attack, this time from clots forming around the stents.

“I was awake the whole time—it was the absolute worse thing I’ve been through in my life. The pain was excruciating. I had all the classic symptoms: cold sweat, pressure in the chest, radiating down the arms. It was terrible.” Another trip to the catheterization laboratory that month and he received two additional stents to seal the edges of the previous one.

“Another week in the hospital and I felt great, but they wouldn’t send me home. I just couldn’t work that out.” Dale’s ejection fraction* was only 30% and the cardiologist was concerned that Dale might have another cardiac arrest, so they installed an ICD to protect him. He went home December 25th. “I went back to refereeing Feb 4th, and I’ve been fully active [ever since].”

“The hearts a muscle, the more you work it, the stronger it gets.” Dale said matter-of-factly. “I feel the best I’ve felt in years.”

Dale now works for a company selling AEDs and training people in CPR. “I work very closely with the Minnesota State High School League on a campaign raising awareness of SCA and the importance of having AEDs in the schools**.” Dale said with pride. “I’m out there talking about things that mean something to me now, that I have a passion for,” he added.

“I was saved because of the quick response of several people, that knew what they were doing. And the quick deployment of the AED. I’m absolutely 100% certain I would be dead [without the AED],” he said with conviction. “The doctors told me that CPR alone wouldn’t have done it. I needed the electrical jolt, I was in V-fib.”

* Ejection Fraction (LVEF) is a measure of heart performance, describing the ratio between blood entering the heart and that “ejected” during contraction of the ventricles. A normal range is 50-55%, below 35% is considered dangerous for SCA.

** Anyone Can Save A Life campaign, in conjunction with the Medtronic Foundation