EMS instructor fakes chest pain, has heart attack

APPLETON – For Karl Arps, throwing the ceremonial first pitch at the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers’ August 25 game was about more than participating in baseball tradition. It was a chance for the emergency medical services instructor to publicly thank the first responders who saved his life using the very methods he taught them. He was the honorary survivor for this year’s CPR at the Ballpark, an annual event that is held as part of a Wisconsin Timber Rattlers game.

Arps, 72, is an EMS instructor with Fox Valley Technical College. He was a longtime patrol member and detective with the Waupaca County Sheriff’s Office. For a while he resided between New London and Manawa and was an avid member of the Waupaca Bass Club.

The day it happened

On March 25, it was an ordinary day in the classroom, where Arps served as an adjunct instructor alongside lead instructor Traci Blondeau who is the director of the Hortonville EMS team.

The class had just finished a test when Blondeau told Arps that three students still needed to run through a training scenario. Chest pain is always an easy one to do, Arps decided.

“I started the scenario. They interviewed me, took my vitals, asked the questions they were supposed to and got me on an ambulance cot,” Arps recalled. “Next thing I know, somebody was yelling at me to wake up.”

Arps, a Hortonville resident, would soon piece together what had happened. When he started the scenario, he felt a little dizzy but brushed it off. After the fact, he learned as he was going through the exercise, his face constricted and he gasped for air.

Understandably, Arps’ students were confused at first. It looked like he was acting but they weren’t sure. Blondeau realized Arps was having a heart attack and sprung to action alongside the students. After calling 911, the group took turns performing CPR on Arps. They also applied an automated external defibrillator (AED) to help restore his heartbeat. An ambulance transported Arps to ThedaCare Regional Medical Center-Appleton.

“Those three students and Traci saved my life,” Arps said of his colleague and students Logan Lehrer, Sofie Devalk and Ben Marsh.

At the hospital

Teams were ready when Arps arrived at the hospital. “Everything was done with perfect timing,” said Arps.

The cardiac catheterization lab was the first stop. The team tried to place a stent but his arteries were too blocked. Arps would need a triple bypass as soon as his blood thinners cleared and it was safe to do so.

ThedaCare cardiothoracic surgeon Thomas Matthew, MD, completed the surgery four days later. On April 1, less than a week after his heart attack, Arps was discharged.

“Dr. Matthew and his team did an excellent job taking care of me. I attribute me being here to that,” Arps said of his surgeon. “He’s kind and considerate and told me exactly what was going on and what they were going to be doing.”

After recovering from surgery, Arps entered the ThedaCare Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation program. The medically supervised program is designed to help people safely resume an active lifestyle following a major heart event, surgery or heart or lung disease diagnosis.

Learn CPR

Looking back on his experience, Arps still finds himself in disbelief. “According to everything I’ve been taught, I should not have made it.”

He referred to the statistic that 90% of people experiencing an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest don’t survive. Timely interventions, including use of CPR and an AED, can mean the difference between life and death.

“Karl was truly an amazing case,” said Callie Leahy, chest pain coordinator for ThedaCare. “He had an incredible team of students behind him whom he clearly taught very well. His students conducting CPR saved his life, which touches on the importance of learning this skill. Anyone in the community can learn hands-only CPR.”