Gene Johnson, New Brighton, MN – 63 at the time of the incident (September 11, 2002)
On the first anniversary of the most tragic event our nation has ever experienced, Gene Johnson of New Brighton, Minnesota, nearly suffered his own personal tragedy—he almost lost his life.
Just before suppertime on that fall afternoon, Gene was laying new sod alongside his recently poured driveway. Then, totally without warning—at least that he can remember—everything went black as Gene fell to the ground. No one noticed at first. He was working alone, his wife Yvonne was in the house, and no neighbors were out and about to recognize his need for help. Gene was down for quite a while before “a strange premonition” came over his daughter Stacey who lives nearby.
“She said she was in her driveway and just had the urge to call us,” Gene said.
When Yvonne answered the phone and went out to tell her husband that their daughter was on the phone, she found Gene on the ground. She called for help and began to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) until the rescue team came to shock him back to life with an automated external defibrillator (AED). Because, according to his own calculations, Gene was down for several minutes before Yvonne found him, thereby delaying the revival process and depriving his brain of precious oxygen, his memory loss covers a longer time period than most survivors.
“I have quite a memory loss before and after,” he says, “I can’t remember things from three weeks before (the cardiac arrest) to three weeks after.”
What Gene does remember is that, in order to stay healthy, he needed to change some things in his life. He now pays more attention to diet and exercise and feels great.
“I got a new life and I wouldn’t like to go back to my old one,” he said, noting that his blood pressure, heart rate and ejection fraction (the percentage in the heart chamber that is pumped into the body with each heartbeat) are all good and he has been able to discontinue much of the medication he had been taking since the incident.