great training, good luck save a life

By Brigitte Ruthman and Jon Riedeman

“You shouldn’t be alive.”

That’s what Norfolk resident Keith Steiger was told by his brother Kurt the day after a remarkable save by the Norfolk Lions Club Ambulance crew, the Norfolk Fire Department and a Hartford HealthCare paramedic.

His brother, a paramedic in Danbury, is just one of many who have told Keith Steiger that he cheated death after his heart stopped beating while at his Norfolk home on Friday, Sept. 6.

That night was an especially busy one for the Norfolk Ambulance crew. They had already gone on a life-threatening drug overdose call and had returned to headquarters after handing off their patient to Charlotte Hungerford Hospital. The volunteer crew—driver Ted Hinman and his wife, EMT and registered nurse Suzanne, and EMT and registered nurse Becky Klimkowski—were tired. It was late, and typically they would have parked the ambulance and headed home. But on this night, Ted Hinman decided it was a good time for a bowl of ice cream. He knew that there was one in the freezer, left over from a recent benefit.

While the crew lingered, just across the street in his apartment Steiger was feeling that something was not right. He felt “weird.” His chest was tight; possibly congestion, he thought. He was nauseous. A heart attack was the furthest thing from his mind. Maybe it was Covid, he considered, as he began fumbling with a test kit. He had, after all, recently seen his doctor for a physical and there had been no red flags. His weight was within a normal range, and his family history of cardiac events occurred later in life. Just 69 years old, he considered himself healthy.

Steiger had seen the ambulance return that night from his second-floor window that looked directly out at their building. It wouldn’t hurt, he thought, to ask the returning crew to check him out.

In one of many life-saving decisions that would be made that night, he called 911.

Fortunately for Steiger, when the crew received the call from dispatch, Ted Hinman was still at headquarters eating that bowl of ice cream. They grabbed their gear and were at his door within seconds.

As the ambulance crew dashed over, one more remarkable twist of fate broke in Steiger’s favor. The medic, David Veith, who should have been stationed 15 minutes away in Winsted, was instead at Steiger’s door when the ambulance crew arrived. Veith had driven back to Norfolk to retrieve his Apple watch, which he had accidentally left in the Norfolk ambulance after the previous call. A medic carries tools such as a portable EKG that are crucial in assisting a cardiac patient. Veith’s early response was imperative to Steiger’s survival.

It was 11:34 p.m. when the crew stepped into Steiger’s apartment. He was conscious and alert and speaking normally as he described his symptoms. After his vital signs were taken and the cardiac monitor was attached to his chest, he was placed in a “stair chair,” a device used to carry patients down stairways.

As they headed down the stairs, the crew noticed Steiger’s head nodding off to one side. He was unconscious. They checked the heart monitor; Steiger was in full cardiac arrest. His heart had completely stopped beating.

Moving quickly, they took him off the stair chair and brought him down to the floor. Together, Klimkosky and Hinman, a firefighter who has taught CPR for years but had never used it on a patient, began CPR. The defibrillator was attached to Steiger’s chest and a shock was delivered that brought his heart back to a normal rhythm.

A call to the Norfolk Volunteer Fire Department for assistance quickly brought four more pairs of hands to help deliver Keith down the stairs, and he was rushed into the waiting ambulance.

En route to the hospital, another dramatic twist occurred. As Veith monitored Steiger’s heart, he noticed that the cardiac monitor was running low on battery. A dead battery would have been a grave risk to Steiger’s survival, but a call to the dispatcher set up a rendezvous with another medic at a Route 8 exit ramp. After a quick handoff of two fully charged batteries, they were off again. The destination was Waterbury Hospital, where more definitive care was waiting, based on communications of his condition.

Steiger was soon delivered to a team of specialists. In the emergency room, he overheard most of the conversations about his condition and even corrected a doctor who estimated his height at six feet. “I’m six-four,” he said.

Moving from lab to surgery, he underwent procedures to clear the blockage, an ischemia of the left ventricle. Everyone involved, right down to the hospital janitor, marveled over his survival and how quickly and “perfectly” his care had been delivered. Yes, he told them, he knows how lucky he is.

After six days in the hospital, five of them in intensive care, Steiger returned home. His sternum and a couple of ribs are recovering from chest compressions during CPR, which is normal.

Tall, animated and optimistic about his future, Steiger plans to retire from his job in the sterilization department at Becton Dickinson next September. He has many relatives, including grandchildren as far away as Texas, and hopes to devote more time to a successful and still-evolving side career writing lyrics for musicals.

He’s committed to better health, takes his medications and has embarked on a cardio-specific exercise routine to build endurance—with the help of a new Apple watch that monitors his heart rate. His 15-minute walks aren’t brisk yet, but he says he’s “stretching it” every day.

The Norfolk Ambulance team finally arrived home at 2:30 that Saturday morning, exhausted but elated after a remarkable life-saving call.

The Hinmans and Klimkosky are three of 35 Norfolk Ambulance volunteers on call, 24 hours a day, every day of the year, for the donation-dependent corps.

Editor’s note: Brigitte Ruthman is an EMT volunteer with the Norfolk Lions Club
Ambulance.

Although symptoms differ by individual, heart attack symptoms typically include chest pain, pressure, difficulty breathing, nausea, radiating back pain and tingling in the fingers.