Portable Defibrillator At Atlanta Airport Saves Priest

By STEVE EUVINO, CNS

Published: November 27, 2003

VALPARAISO, Ind. (CNS)—On July 23, Father Joseph Pawlowski, pastor of St. Paul Parish in Valparaiso, was 15 feet from Pope John Paul II. The next day he was a heartbeat away from heaven.

The 55-year-old priest suffered cardiac arrest July 24 in Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport. According to the parishioner who helped revive him, the pastor technically had died, but within minutes was again showing vital signs. A combination of human help and shocks from an Automatic External Defibrillator, known as an AED, restored his life.

“It certainly is a blessing,” said Father Pawlowski. “Most people get the gift of life once. I got it twice. It just makes me more dedicated to what I’m doing.”

Father Pawlowski, 53 choir members and other parishioners had deplaned in Atlanta after a 10-hour flight from Italy, where the choir had performed at several sites. The priest had just gone through customs when he felt dizzy and passed out, collapsing onto the floor of the nation’s busiest airport.

The priest, who said he had been feeling fine, experienced a sudden problem in his heart’s electrical system. The bottom part of his heart was quivering, or fibrillating, not pumping.

As the pastor later learned, had he not received life support within six minutes he would have died.

Registered nurse Cheryl Wasemann, a parishioner on the trip, also had just exited customs. Her husband, Gary, who didn’t realize the fallen person was Father Pawlowski, called to his wife that someone needed a nurse.

Although airport personnel warned Cheryl Wasemann not to touch Father Pawlowski, the nurse turned him to assess the situation. Her pastor, face bloodied from the fall, was not breathing and had no pulse. She told airport staff to get an AED, as she and her husband started CPR. She did mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, while Gary, a former Scout leader, did chest compressions.

When the portable defibrillator arrived, Cheryl Wasemann hooked it up. After two shocks and more resuscitation, Father Pawlowski was disoriented but breathing. Emergency medical personnel then took him to the hospital.

A nurse for more than 30 years and a CPR instructor for 10 years, Cheryl Wasemann said, “My training is so well ingrained that I did not panic. Machines save people, but it’s people who have to run the machines.”

Father Pawlowski spent 15 days in the hospital, and was treated by an electrophysiology specialist in Indiana. He now has a pacemaker and a built-in defibrillator.

In Italy, the priest said, he walked three to five miles daily, sometimes in 95-degree weather. And, he said, his father died from a major heart attack at 39. However, as he learned, cardiac arrest is a ventricular condition that claims 300,000 Americans annually.

“I feel pretty good now—not 100 percent, maybe 90 percent,” Father Pawlowski told the Northwest Indiana Catholic, newspaper of the Gary Diocese. “Like I told the bishop, the good Lord does not want me yet, but must want me to do something.”

The priest is ordering two more AEDs, in addition to the unit St. Paul’s already purchased through the local fire department for its senior citizen facility, St. Agnes Day Service Center.

“We hope as many people as possible” are trained on the external defibrillators, said Barb Kubiszak, director of the center. “Anybody can run it.”

The pastor wants the other defibrillators for the church and school. Each unit, at a cost of $2,200, can restore a heart rhythm until rescue units arrive. Father Pawlowski learned that for every minute a person is not revived the chances of survival are reduced 10 percent.

The pastor said he wouldn’t have survived without immediate care, something that’s important for people to realize.

“We have people that pass out in church and school, and not just old people,” he said. “These things do happen, and the EMTs may not arrive quickly enough.”

Personnel at Hartsfield told Father Pawlowski that 200 of the external defibrillators were installed last March. Since then, the units have been used five times and saved three people, “and I was one of them,” the pastor noted.

“It’s a gift. It’s a grace,” Father Pawlowski said. “If you have this tool, you can save someone’s life.”