10/02/2026
On December 6, 2025, Mr. J was traveling with his wife when he began to experience back pain. As the pain worsened, he had to ask his wife to finish the drive home. His wife was concerned, but he insisted in going home. When he got home, he got out of the car, walked into the house, and laid down in the couch. Shortly after, his wife called 911 for him experiencing Chest Pain. As MICU 5-51 went responding, the call was quickly upgraded to a Cardiac Arrest, which added our MICU 5-31 and the SAFER fire department.
Acting quickly at the instruction of our York County 911 dispatcher, Mrs. J found the strength to move a solid wood coffee table and get Mr. J onto the floor to begin continuous chest compression CPR. This was the beginning of a happy ending to this story...
Our ALS, BLS, IALS crew members arrived with the Fire Department and took over CPR while performing ACLS interventions. Defibrillation after defibrillation (8 in total by EMS, 12 overall total!), Mr. J's heart just didn't want to restart. The crew didn't give up and kept working their hardest to give him the best chance at survival.
After transporting, the team at WellSpan York Hospital took over, continuing resuscitation efforts. His heart restarted, but no one knew what long term effects would be felt.
Two weeks later, he was discharged.
Ten months later, he is getting ready to go to his first bodybuilding competition in several years, deciding that now is as good a time as ever to come out of retirement!
We met Mr. J, his wife, and his friends today. This almost never happens. Surviving an OOH cardiac arrest is rare... meeting a survivor is even more rare!
This is a testament to how important bystander CPR is. Mrs. J gave Mr. J a fighting chance by doing what needed to be done, keeping his blood flowing and the oxygen moving in his system.
Every step along the way worked exactly like it was supposed to from Dispatch to EMS arrival w/ FD, to the hospital, to discharge.
Thanks, Mr. and Mrs. J for giving us that reminder that what we do matters!
Employees: EMT Lynch, AEMT Boggs, Captain Flinchbaugh. Not pictured due to getting a call right before: Paramedic Anderson. Also not pictured due to school: AEMT Butler.
York County PA Office of Emergency Management Southern Area Fire and Emergency Rescue - SAFER Emergency Health Services Federation
