Cardiac arrest survivor reunites with off duty first responders who performed CPR when he collapsed
Dec 12, 2024, 7:04 PM | Updated: Dec 13, 2024, 9:08 am
AMERICAN FORK — On Thursday, a Pleasant Grove man was reunited with the people who saved his life when he went into cardiac arrest at the gym.
Kevan Elkins is only 39-years-old. He remembers starting his first set of weight-lifting at the gym on Nov. 1.
“I started my first set list, and then my memory blanks out until I felt like I was rolling,” he said.
Intermountain American Fork Hospital Emergency Room Nurse Cameron Connelly happened to see him collapse. She went over to check on him and noticed he wasn’t breathing.
Intermountain American Fork Hospital Emergency Room Nurse Cameron Connelly (KSL TV)
“He probably just passed out,” she thought at the time. “He lifted too heavy. I got down next to him and immediately realized that that was not what was happening.”
He wasn’t responding to her and wasn’t breathing
Pleasant Grove paramedic Curtis Hutchinson, who happens to work with Connelly often, was also working out and came over to help. He called 911 while the nurse began CPR.
“I lost you three times and we got you back four,” Connelly told Elkins during an emotional reunion.
Connelly and Hutchinson took turns doing chest compressions. Hutchinson used an automated external defibrillator (AED) to shock Elkins back into normal rhythm. First responders arrived just a few minutes later.
“When we get on scene, we usually see CPR still in progress and a lifeless patient,” said American Fork Fire Battalion Chief Tim Dunkley. “We didn’t see that this time.”
Elkins was taken to Timpanogos Hospital, where he received an internal defibrillator.
‘I’m beyond happy you had training and you got me back’
Dunkley said Elkins won the lottery as far as who his good samaritans were.
“I know you guys do it for a living but you didn’t have to that day,” Elkins told Connelly and Hutchinson. “I’m beyond happy you had training and you got me back.”
Kevan Elkins became emotional before thanking an Intermountain Healthcare nurse for saving his life after he suffered cardiac arrest at the gym. (KSL TV)
First responders said every second of Connelly’s and Hutchinson’s work mattered.
“We still hover around 10% survival rate out of hospital cardiac arrest,” Dunkley said. “Every minute that that’s prolonged, that chance of survival actually drops by 10%.”
Something anybody can learn
Hutchinson said anyone could’ve done what they did. He encourages people to take CPR training.
“Keeping compressions going, getting an AED, early defibrillation, something that literally any person in the community can learn,” Hutchinson said.
Elkins is forever grateful.
“I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t been there,” he said. “It took me a couple of weeks, really, to come to terms with the fact that I was like, I died twice, actually and almost left my son without his dad.”
Both the nurse and paramedic were awarded Intermountain Health Challenge Coins for jumping in to help save Elkins’s life, while they were off the clock.
