Column: Good Company Proves a Lifesaver

Bob Greenwood gets around pretty well for a guy who was dead in April.

The 70-year-old retiree from Modesto hopes to play golf again soon. He visits friends. And he serves as the western trustee for the International Association of Firefighters, which in no small part explains why he is alive to tell his story.

When you hang out with professional lifesavers, and you have the kind of heart attack Greenwood endured last spring, your chances of survival are a bit better.

And when you played a role in securing the training given to firefighter-paramedics who ultimately save your life, as Greenwood has done, you've clearly hedged your bet.

Not only did his firefighter buddies administer CPR and mouth-to-mouth, they refused to let an emergency room doctor give up on him after more than 20 jolts with a defibrillator didn't bring him back.

"Guys like Greenwood have been around the fire service and pushed to get the things we need today," said Bob D'Ausilio, an Alhambra firefighter who worked on Greenwood that day. "It was a classic case of a witnessed arrest (heart attack), early CPR, early defibrillation and early arrival of the paramedics."

Greenwood spent 17 years with the Modesto Fire Department before heart problems forced him into early retirement in 1984. Given the option of a plastic or porcine replacement heart valve, he took the pig heart in 1983, knowing he'd have to go through more surgery someday.

"You're supposed to get eight to 10 years out of it, and I got nine," Greenwood said. He's since had it replaced with a polycarbon valve.

Greenwood spent a decade as secretary-treasurer of the California Professional Firefighters Association. When his final term ended in 1993, the organization made him its secretary emeritus, which means he would forever be invited to the annual convention and all the good parties.

He tried to retire again. About that time, the International Association of Firefighters needed a trustee to represent members west of the Mississippi river.

"They told me they needed me to run to keep (the trusteeship) in California," Greenwood said. "My head was the size of a watermelon. I ran and I won."

He's been a trustee ever since.

D'Ausilio, however, said Greenwood downplays his contributions to the firefighter-paramedic profession.

"He's always pushing for better training, better equipment to serve the public," D'Ausilio said.

Greenwood attended the state organization's convention in Anaheim and had his heart attack there April 29. He remembers checking in at the Disneyland Hotel and heading to the barbecue at the end of the convention. That's about it.

"They tell me I was talking to a friend of mine from Fresno, about going to (Disneyland)," Greenwood said. "He was calling his wife, telling her to come over (from the hotel) to go with us. I just stood up and fell over."

Sitting at the next table, D'Ausilio saw Greenwood fall and knew it wasn't an accidental spill. Scott McBride, a Roseville firefighter, and D'Ausilio rolled Greenwood over and began working on him. Coincidentally, McBride had worked with D'Ausilio in Alhambra before moving to Roseville. D'Ausilio began CPR while McBride administered mouth-to-mouth.

The Anaheim Fire Department stations a paramedic crew at Disneyland, so the response time was minimal. D'Ausilio had noticed the hotel kept a defibrillator on site and sent someone to get it.

"He shocked me six times on the ground," Greenwood said.

D'Ausilio and Dave Gillotte, president of the Los Angeles County Firefighters' Association, rode with him in the ambulance to the University of California at Irvine Medical Center.

An emergency room doctor -- and a pregnant one at that -- worked on Greenwood, with no success.

D'Ausilio, confident that Greenwood could be revived, refused to let her quit. With Greenwood's age and condition, doctors probably feared he would have suffered irreversible organ damage from the lack of oxygen. But the firefighters knew they had done a good job working on him from the beginning.