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Wednesday, March 7, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
SAVE A LIFE:
CPR was the critical
factor in the save
Continued from page 1
Clyde Dildine was at
Sisters Athletic Club work-
ing out when Adler was there.
He noticed that his friend was
working hard, bench-pressing
a pretty good stack of plates.
Recounting the event at
Angeline’s Bakery last week,
Dildine said, “I just walked
over to glance at the TV…
I turned around and you
were down. My first thought
was epilepsy — an epileptic
seizure.”
Dildine and another SAC
patron named Rob checked
Adler for a pulse. Neither
could find one.
“That’s when I immedi-
ately started CPR,” Dildine
said.
It was that action that
saved Adler’s life.
Dildine had learned CPR
as a commercial raft guide,
along with wilderness first
aid.
“I knew what to do — but
I’d never done it before,” he
said. “I just went to work. It
was instinctive. I knew that
had to happen.”
Citizen or bystander CPR
does have to happen. Sisters
Fire Paramedic Jeremy Ast,
who responded to the call at
SAC, told The Nugget that
survivability in sudden car-
diac arrest goes down 10
percent per minute that a
patient goes unattended. That
means that if it takes just five
minutes for paramedics to
respond to a call and get into
action, a person’s chance of
survival diminish by half.
CPR keeps blood circu-
lating through the lungs and
brain and “keeps heart tis-
sue viable,” according to
Paramedic David Keller, who
also responded to the call.
Without CPR, it is “less likely
that defibrillation would
work,” Keller said.
“It saved his life, for sure.”
Dildine kept up CPR
while SAC staff contacted
911. Some of the paramed-
ics responded from Sisters
High School, where they
were teaching students in the
health program.
The minutes felt very,
very long, as Clyde kept up
the compressions, keying
the rhythm to the Bee Gees’
“Stayin’ Alive.” Knowing the
man he was trying to save
gave a special urgency to his
efforts, as he kept talking to
Adler, bidding him to come
back.
Defibrillation from the
SAC automatic external defi-
brillator did not bring back
a pulse; the contact wasn’t
sufficient.
Emergency responders hit
the scene and went to work,
and Adler’s wife, arrived
shortly thereafter.
“The parking lot was just
ablaze,” she recalled, the
memory making her flinch.
When she got upstairs to
the weight room, “David was
white,” she said.
His heart had just started,
jolted by the defibrillator
Ast carries in his command
vehicle.
That was a critical devel-
opment, but things still
did not look good. Marcy
unclenched her husband’s
hand and peeled off his work-
out glove.
“His hand was white and
cold,” she said. “I was hold-
ing his hand and talking to
him.”
The Sisters Fire crew had
mobilized air transport, but
Ast made the call to transport
via ground ambulance rather
than driving to the airport and
waiting for the chopper to
come in.
“There’s times when it’s
quicker just to go by ground,”
Ast said.
Though Adler was breath-
ing and had a pulse again,
he was far from safe. Even
if he survived, it was far
from certain that he would
be “OK.” Doctors were con-
cerned about the possibility
of brain injury. The medical
team induced hypothermia
PHOTO PROVIDED
David and Marcy Ldler stopped by Sisters Fire Hall to thank the first responders who brought David back from the
brink of death. The responding crew included Jeremy Lst, Christi Davis, David Ward, David Keller and Sadie Ford.
for about 20 hours to preserve
brain function.
“It was pretty tenuous,”
Marcy recalled. “At first it
was pretty scary.”
One of the first indications
that David was “there” when
he was brought out of seda-
tion was that he recognized
Marcy. When the doctors
asked him who she was, he
said. “My soulmate.”
Within days, it became
apparent that not only had
Adler survived stepping right
on the threshold of eternity
— he had survived in healthy
condition. His heart and his
arteries appear undamaged,
and his short-term memory,
which was foggy, has come
back — though he remem-
bers nothing of the day or two
leading up to the event and
nothing of the event itself.
His prognosis is excellent.
Right now, he’s working on
getting his energy back.
His good condition —
almost certainly enhanced by
his high level of physical fit-
ness — leaves questions.
“They couldn’t really tell
what happened,” Marcy said.
There had been no warn-
ing signs, and a recent physi-
cal had raised no red flags. In
fact, David is noted for being
exceptionally fit and training
hard.
Adler feels like he’s been
given a second life.
“It is nothing short of
miraculous that I am alive,”
he said. “Given the amount
of time that passed, I believe
Clyde and the EMTs brought
me back from the very edge
of life and death. The statis-
tics for a successful recov-
ery following out-of-hospital
CPR (are) extremely low,
and I can only attribute my
survival to the extraordinary
effort and fortitude of Clyde
and the EMTs.”
For his part, Dildine is
gratified that David has done
so well — but uncomfortable
being given so much credit.
“While I appreciate and
am truly humbled by all the
accolades I have person-
ally received for my role
in David’s survival, I feel I
alone did not, and should not
receive the credit for saving
David’s life,” he told The
Nugget. “All of us who were
involved in those first fran-
tic minutes are still second-
guessing ourselves on what
we did, or what we could
have done better or differ-
ently. But it was a TEAM
EFFORT from everyone
involved. Each of us work-
ing as hard as we knew how
within the limits of our expe-
rience and training, hoping
for a successful outcome.
There are no heroes in this
story, only a bunch of won-
derful people trying to save
the life of another.”
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