By Cali Bagby

Interim editor

While on vacation, Ben Heege had no idea that he would save a man’s life. But that is what happened. On July 23, Heege and his family headed to Lopez Island to enjoy the beautiful scenery. During their stay they visited a friend who lives part-time on the island.

When the Heeges arrived at the home of Joey Johnson they exchanged greetings. But within minutes of their arrival Johnson collapsed. They would later learn that Johnson was suffering from cardiac arrest. Johnson’s wife dialed 911 and Heege began to give CPR (Cardiopulmonary resuscitation) using techniques he had learned 10 years ago.

“I felt scared for him and his family, but I felt like [CPR] was the one thing I could do,” said Heege.

After 12 minutes of CPR, Lopez EMS arrived on the scene and  continued resuscitation efforts before flying the patient to a mainland hospital.

“Without his help and initiating CPR we would have had a much longer shot at saving this man’s life,” said one of the paramedics.

Johnson was released from the hospital last week and is expected to make a full recovery.

“It basically came out of nowhere,” said Johnson, who has been athletic and healthy his entire life.

Johnson said it’s hard to comprehend the whole ordeal at this time, but that he is grateful to Heege and the EMS teams whose efforts saved his life. His wife plans on getting CPR-trained in the near future. To receive CPR training on San Juan visit http://sanjuanems.org/ or call 378-5152 ext. 3.