By KENDALL BARTLEY/KVAL-TV
EUGENE — There were terrifying moments at the entrance to the Olive Garden restaurant in Eugene last year, when George Koskela of Waldport suddenly collapsed in cardiac arrest.
“I will never forget the way he looked… you could tell he was gone,” said his wife, Sherry Koskela. “You could tell that he wasn’t there anymore, and that was my whole world going down the tubes.”
Sherry and George were visiting from Waldport to do some shopping and decided to have an early dinner at Olive Garden. “Last thing I remember is parking the vehicle walking through the door,” said George Koskela.
As George went to open the second door into the lobby of the restaurant, he collapsed, unconscious. Olive Garden employee Kris Gonzalez was standing at the host stand.
“The doors opened, and they both had grabbed a separate handle of our double doors,” Gonzalez said. “Her door opened and his door stopped, and he went down.
“There’s no pulse, his face is pale… you could see all the beginning signs of what was happening, and so I just started chest compressions,” said Gonzalez, who previously worked at a senior living facility and was trained in CPR.
Sherry Koskela said she was in complete shock as Gonzalez began performing the lifesaving procedure.
“I was afraid that I was going to lose my husband,” she said. “He’s my best friend and having someone that you count on to talk with daily not be there, your brain just does funny things.”
Another employee, Andrea Otero, is also trained in CPR.
“I was actually in the back,” she said. “I had no clue what was going on, I just saw managers running towards the front, and out of curiosity I followed to see what was going on, and I see George on the ground, and I was just, like, ‘check his pulse’.”
Both Otero and Gonzalez continued to perform CPR until paramedics arrived, at which point Koskela had taken a breath.
“Those two girls doing what they did and seeing him take a breath,” Sherry Koskela said. “He actually took a couple of little breaths, it just, it gives you hope he’ll be here one more minute, he’ll be here one more minute.”
Which Dr. Manju Raju, a cardiologist with PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at Riverbend, says the CPR was vital in saving Koskela’s life.
“With this patient, the minute the bystander could do chest compressions, he could have his pulse and circulation back,” Raju said. “So, that gave the EMS time to kind of get him in a timely fashion, so he didn’t have much loss of his blood platelets to the brain, because time is tissue.”
Everyone involved in helping save Koskela’s life was recognized at a dinner Monday night at the same restaurant where it happened.
“You don’t expect standing there and having all those people, let alone them putting their education, lives, and careers, their expertise as a hole into you to make sure you’re still sitting here where you could be somewhere else,” Koskela said. “I’m very choked up about it.”
“They were like angels, they were just all in their place and they all did their job and it was just unbelievable I’m still speechless over it,” said Sherry Koskela.
From the 911 operators, to the first arriving responders, to the doctors who worked on Koskela when he arrived at the hospital, all the people who helped save Koskela’s life were at Monday night’s dinner.
“Having been in law-enforcement,” said Koskela. “You keep your character in, you keep that straight face to go through your situation, I can’t keep a straight face today, let alone without tears. That’s how emotional it is to me.”
George and Sherry Koskela presented Gonzalez and Otero with a HeartSaver award created by a partnership between the Eugene Springfield Fire Department and PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at Riverbend.
“I am just really happy he is alive,” said Gonzalez.
The moment highlights the importance of trained bystanders performing CPR because, if the two women not acted medical experts said there’s a chance Koskela wouldn’t be here today.
“Thank you for everything you guys ever did and keep up the good work,” said George. “I’m with you guys 100 percent. I’m here, it can be done, I don’t know what else to say about it, it’s a godsend, it’s a godsend.”
