Pittsburgh Anchor Saves Man's Life
Back in 2011, WPXI Anchor Susan Koeppen once went into sudden cardiac arrest while running and was saved by two medical students who happened to be nearby.
Back in July, Koeppen was the one who help save a man in cardiac arrest.
As she was waiting at a traffic light, Koeppen watched a car heading the opposite direction swerving out of control, one way, then the other through the intersection. Koeppen thought the male driver, whom she could tell was older than her, must be confused. But when his car hopped the curb and crashed into a fence, she could see the man was slumped in his seat, unconscious.
As Koeppen raced across two lanes of Penn Avenue traffic to reach him, she noticed him rhythmically gasping for air, known as “agonal breathing.”
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes that Koeppen knows that term and its significance as a “telltale sign of cardiac arrest” because she’s told she breathed similarly before bystanders initiated CPR and saved her life nearly 11 years ago. Since then, she’s maintained her CPR certification, spoken to groups of medical students, been the spokeswoman for the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation and works closely with the American Heart Association.
But on that morning, she went from well-known survivor to “ordinary” heroine, as not a single bystander or first responder knew her as anyone other than “the woman who gave CPR.”
Koeppen popped the man’s seat belt, and felt grateful for her above-average height, nearly 5-foot-9-inches, as she had the leverage (and adrenaline) to lift him out of the car. But she also felt the presence of someone behind her, whom she asked to grab his legs.
Koeppen started CPR as a few other bystanders — one of whom identified herself as a retired nurse — assisted by checking for breathing and a pulse after every five rounds of Koeppen’s compressions, which she applied from a standing position for better leverage given the terrain.
The man, Mark Symms is alive today, thanks to a TV anchor that knew what to do.