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Emergency service workers beat the odds and save a life

Last Dec. 14, Mike Suzuki left work early. While walking to his car, he had a heart attack. This was only the beginning.

By John Tredrea, Staff Writer
   As well as he knows anything, Mike Suzuki knows he is very lucky to be alive.
   ”By all accounts and reports, I should probably be in Never Never Land now,” he said Saturday afternoon.
   Saturday was another workday at the Pennington Quality Market for Mr. Suzuki.
   A 57-year-old resident of Bensalem, Pa., where he lives with his wife, Diane, he’s been with market 17 years. He stood in front of the store and pointed to several members of the Pennington First Aid Squad (PFAS), who were raising money for the squad by selling hotdogs and soft drinks. The squad has been doing that in front of the market once a year for longer than anyone involved can remember.
   Pointing to the EMTs who were raising money for their own volunteer work, Mr. Suzuki said, “If it weren’t for those people and their teammates, I’m not here today. They’re not here, I’m not here. They’re my guardian angel.”
   Last Dec. 14, five months after marrying Diane, Mr. Suzuki left work early. “I didn’t feel well,” he recalled. While walking to his car, he had a heart attack and fell to the parking lot pavement.
   His heart stopped beating. It would stop three more times — twice in the ambulance, once in the hospital — before the crisis was over.
   ”In most cases like that, the patient dies right away or very soon,” PFAS President Dan Boone said Saturday. “Fortunately, it all started with 911.”
   To say the PFAS ambulance responded quickly is an understatement. The rig was rolling before the alarm could be sounded in response to the 911 call of the woman who found Mr. Suzuki laying unconscious in the parking lot.
   ”We were in the right place at the right time. We were in the squad house when it happened,” said PFAS member Deron Williams, who drove the ambulance. Joining him on the call was his colleague and fellow EMT Richard Gordon.
   ”We heard it on the police radio before the call even went out,” Mr. Gordon said. “We went right away.”
   On Broemel Place in Pennington, the squad house is only a few blocks from the market. When the PFAS ambulance reached Mr. Suzuki, Patrolman Michael Sherman of the Hopewell Township police was already with him.
   ”We originally thought Mr. Suzuki had been hit by a car, and Officer Sherman was working to immobilize his spine, which is one of the things you do in a case like that,” Mr. Gordon said. “He also told us that Mr. Suzuki was unconscious, not breathing and had no pulse.”
   Capt.ain Ian Malik of the Hopewell Valley Emergency Services Unit and county paramedics arrived shortly after Officer Sherman and the PFAS. Defibrillators were used to shock Mr. Suzuki’s heart into beating again. It stopped twice more en route to Mercer Hospital and the defibrillators were used both times. It stopped a fourth time in the hospital and they were used again.
   ”Four times,” Mr. Suzuki said, shaking his head, Saturday afternoon. “Living to tell that tale puts me in quite a small minority, I know. One of the cardiologists said to me: ‘At crunch time, I had to bet against you. But you made it. It’s a great thing.’”
   Capt.ain Malik said, “It’s so nice to see an outcome like this. To see a person go through that and then be walking again, well. . .you can’t beat that.”
   Mr. Suzuki was hospitalized for two months. “I really have no memory of the first month at all,” he said.
   ”Diane was by his side the whole time,” said Pennington Market owner Mike Rothwell.
   Mr. Suzuki was originally expected to miss 10 to 12 months of work. But, a man who is as strong as he looks, he mended quickly and came back to the market several months ago. A fair amount of his time at work involves supervising cashiers, many of whom are in their teens or early 20s.
   ”Those kids visited Mike en masse at the hospital,” Mr. Rothwell said. “They went out of respect and because they think so much of him.”
   Indeed, any regular customer of the market knows that Mr. Suzuki’s good-natured, insightful and witty repartee with the young cashiers is so good that you could almost charge admission to hear it. He is a peer of those half his age and less. Another gift.
   How does it feel now?
   Mr. Suzuki looked around him, at the parking lot, the wall of the building, the sky, parked ambulance, passing people, and tried to find words.
   ”It’s amazing,” he said finally.
   Clearly reaching hard to say what he thought and to know what he thought, he concluded, “It’s funny. It’s like I feel now that, when it’s my time, it’ll happen. And I’m not going to worry about it. In fact, now that I’ve ‘been there,’ I worry about it even less than I used to. I feel good. I am pretty tired at the end of the day, and my sense of time is still kind of being pieced back together . . .”
   He shrugged, smiled with a glint of a sort of insight not often encountered and, after almost seeming to see another world or parallel universe for a split second, said: “Let’s put it this way. It sure beats being on the dark side.”