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CPR helps save friend’s life

Waupaca man suffers cardiac arrest

By Angie Landsverk


There is new meaning to the decades long friendship between Dan Peterson and Eric Brehmer.

Brehmer helped save his best friend’s life.

The two of them were at the home of Jack and Sandy Huse on July 20, helping the couple prepare for a move, when Peterson went into cardiac arrest.

“We had just finished carrying a couch from the basement,” Brehmer said. “We sat down. All of a sudden, he just like in slow motion tipped over and fell on the floor.”

At first Brehmer thought his friend was playing a joke on him.

Then he noticed Peterson’s nose was bleeding.

Peterson scratched his nose when he tipped over.

“I listened for breathing. There was no pulse at all,” Brehmer said. “I told them to call 911. I thought he had a heart attack.”

Brehmer immediately started doing CPR, administering chest compressions.

Jack did CPR on Peterson as well.

“We worked on him and worked on him,” Brehmer said. “I was telling him, ‘Come on – we’ve got a lot of things to do.’”

While they did CPR, Sandy listened for the ambulance.

“I was praying give us strength that we would do this right,” she said.

Their home is on Sunset Lake, just outside of Waupaca.

After about 10 minutes, she called 911 a second time.

“I went out to the end of their driveway so they weren’t looking at all the (fire) numbers,” Sandy said.

When the ambulance arrived, they used a defibrillator twice on Peterson.

“He stopped breathing twice. He came back again,” Jack said.

The ambulance took Peterson to ThedaCare Medical Center-Waupaca.

He was then airlifted to ThedaCare Medical Center-Neenah.

Peterson was at that hospital several days before being transferred to its Appleton hospital.

On July 28, he went to Crossroads Care Center, in Waupaca, for rehabilitation.

Peterson went home from there Aug. 3, and now has a pacemaker and defibrillator.

He has follow-up appointments and home therapy.

The 68-year-old does not remember anything from the day he went into cardiac arrest.

The Vietnam veteran retired from Waupaca Foundry in 2011 after working there 37 years.

Since then, he has worked part time at the Wisconsin Veterans Home at King and done side jobs with Brehmer.

Peterson says he is on “temporary leave” from those assignments.

Both Brehmer and Jack were trained in CPR.

Jack received his training about 25 years ago, while Brehmer received his about two years ago at Kimberly Clark, where he works and is a member of the Emergency Response Team.

Sandy had a 30-plus career in nursing and said, “We were not panicked.”

For both Brehmer and Jack, it was the first time they did CPR on someone.

“I couldn’t have done anything without these two,” Brehmer said.

Jack said, “We have three ordinary people working on one guy, and we had an excellent result, I believe, through God’s guidance.”

Sandy said they were phenomenal.

Now Peterson and his wife Colleen want to receive CPR training.

“I think that would be a good thing,” he said.

Brehmer also encourages people to do so.

“It’s so important in this day and age to learn CPR,” he said. “I used to sit in those classes and think, ‘I’m never going to remember this. Am I ever going to need to?’”

The training Brehmer and Jack received kicked in immediately.

“We were the frontline,” Jack said.

They all extended their appreciation to the ambulance personnel and also to those from the Waupaca County Sheriff’s Office who responded that day, as well as to those at the hospitals and nursing home who helped Peterson.

Peterson and his wife are grateful for Brehmer and the couple they were helping that day.

“There was a reason all three of us were there at the time,” Jack said.

Brehmer noted Peterson received a phone call early in the day on July 20 about whether they could help the couple.

“I came home from work. Dan called me up and said, ‘We’ve got a job. Do you want to do it?’” Brehmer said. “I said, ‘Sure.’”

Brehmer does not like to think about what the outcome would have been that if he had not been with his friend of 30-some years when he went into cardiac arrest that day.

“There isn’t a day since it happened that I’m not thinking about him,” Brehmer said. “I think about Dan every day and thank God both of you (Jack and Sandy) were there.”

Doctors told Peterson one in 20 people survive cardiac arrest.

“There were three people not going to give up,” Brehmer said. “I’d be very, very lost without him.”

Listening to how three people worked together to save him is overwhelming for Peterson.

He is feeling fine these days, except for a little scratch in his throat.

“I’m glad these three people were there,” Peterson said.

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