Doctor brothers save man's life after golf course heart attack
SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (WJBK) - In early August, a 61-year-old man from Novi was playing in a golf tournament at Plum Hollow. He was feeling good -- until he got to the third hole. Something went wrong, and he collapsed.
Little did he know, though, that two holes behind him were two brothers playing in the same tournament, who happen to be doctors. They helped save his life.
"First hole, I'm in the sand trap. Someone pulls up and says, 'Is there a doctor?' and I said I am an ER doctor," Chris Cooley remembers. "They said someone was unresponsive. I see someone lying there about 300 yards away. My instinct was I just took off sprinting."
Chris Cooley is an ER doctor at Beaumont and happened to be golfing with his brother, who is a gastroenterologist at St. John Providence. As they were just starting their round, David Wujczyk, 61, had collapsed.
"I just felt a little strange," says Wujczyk. "I kind of like fainted, passed out and I that's when I had my heart attack I guess."
"He's blue, his coloring was horrible," Cooley says. "Every 15 seconds or so he takes a breath. I feel for a pulse and there's no pulse. I immediately get on his chest and do chest compressions and do CPR on him."
What no one knew at the time was Wujczyk had a 100 percent blockage of what's called the widow maker, the artery that supplies blood to the entire left side of the heart.
Someone called 911, and the brothers traded off doing CPR. That is the only way to keep the brain alive during cardiac arrest. Then they waited for a defibrillator to shock the heart.
"The CPR we did allowed blood and oxygen get to his organs, particularly his brain being the most important," says Dr. Matt Cooley. "The defibrillator kind of reset the electricity of his heart, which we can't do without the actual shock."
"The Southfield firefighters deserve a lot of credit," Chris says. "They were so fast, they got there in eight to 10 minutes and they were able to bring the defibrillator to the patient which the patient needed."
Dave ended up at Providence Hospital, where his blockage was opened up and stents were put in place to keep the arteries clear. He is still in shock that this happened to him.
"I was like, the healthy guy in my group," Dave says.
Now Dave is back at work as an insurance agent, his ribs broken from the CPR -- and his life completely different.
"I was the butter salt guy of America," he says. "I ate everything."
"There's no question in my mind they [saved my life]," Dave says. "There's absolutely zero. I think about it every single day."
Dave is now following the DASH diet with a lot of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, he's feeling pretty good and is ready to make a lifelong change.