Tennessee patient gets chance to thank people who saved him

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (AP) — “My dad died at 53, he lost his father at 43,” Toby Dudley said. “I just turned 49 on Monday.”

Dudley nearly didn’t make it this far.

On May 18, tragedy struck in the foyer of the Dudleys’ Murfreesboro home. On Thursday, Toby Dudley finally got to meet the people who saved his life.

“You’re never prepared.”

Connie Dudely, Toby’s wife, was recovering upstairs from a medical procedure, when she heard her husband return to the home.

Then she heard a crash.

“What did you knock over?” she says she asked. There was no response.

Something seemed wrong, so she made her way toward the front door.

There, she saw her husband on the floor, his face purple from lack of oxygen. She called out for help, but her daughter was in the shower and didn’t hear. Her son was upstairs wearing noise-canceling headphones; he couldn’t hear her at first, either.

Connie Dudley called 911, and Rutherford County EMS telecommunicator Marsha Duncan took the call.

Duncan, through a series of key questions, determined that Toby Dudley was unresponsive and not breathing. While an ambulance made its way to the house (they arrived about two minutes after being dispatched, the paramedics said), she knew time was of the essence.

“We started right away, as soon as we got the call, we started CPR,” she said. “No one was trained, so I let them know that I could help them if they wanted to start, and they wanted to start.”

Toby Dudley’s 21-year-old son followed each of Duncan’s instructions. He put the phone on speaker and started performing compressions on his father who, it was later determined, went into cardiac arrest.

“He’s just that kind of kid,” Toby Dudley said. “He’s kind of shy and reserved, but when it comes down to it, he’ll jump right in and do whatever it takes to get it done.”

His early actions may have helped save his life.

“We’ve had only about eight people walk out of the hospital in the past two years,” after cardiac arrest, telecommunications supervisor Vickie Prater said.

“I am very happy and surprised and happy to see him up and going as well as he is, it’s pretty amazing,” paramedic John Dustin Graves said.

Graves was one of five medics to arrive at the Dudleys’ home that day. His partner, Travis Rorabaugh was also present Thursday.

Rorabaugh shared hugs and smiles with Connie Dudley, who called him her “superman,” for his help in saving her husband.

“It was something I felt need recognizing the medics and the dispatchers that are behind the scenes, to actually meet somebody that did survive a cardiac arrest event,” Brent Carter, paramedic and deputy coroner said. Carter helped organize the meeting Thursday.

If early CPR is started, and an early shock is given, the (chance of a positive) outcome is a lot greater,” Graves said.

Duncan and Prater both said that “something is better than nothing,” in a situation where someone stops breathing.

“If you can start compressions, even if you haven’t been to a training in 30 years, you might know more than the person sitting next to you,” Duncan said.

Dudley has said he’s thinking about the future differently now than before the cardiac arrest event. He has had two stents put into his heart, is treating a third with medication. He is still recovering from a couple of cracked ribs, and he joked that every time he feels them hurt he laughs, because he “knows the guy who gave them” to him — Rorabaugh.

“(RCEMS) have every reason to be proud of what they do. I’m just happy to be here and thankful to anyone who had anything to do with it,” Dudley said. “It’s been a life changing experience.”

He can’t wait until he can golf again, but was advised to hold off on taking the riding mower out for a while, at least until his ribs heal.

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Information from: The Daily News Journal, http://www.dnj.com