Jan. 14 began relatively uneventfully for Mike Comegys.
The 70-year-old was home alone with his dog, enjoying his Friday and thinking about his late mother, whose birthday it was, when he began feeling pains in his arm and chest.
Soon, Comegys was short of breath – all signs he recognized from a heart attack he’d suffered in 2009. Calmly, he dialed 911 and described his symptoms to the call-taker, who asked if he wanted her to stay on the line.
“No, I think I’m fine,” Comegys said before hanging up and calling his wife.
Within about 15 minutes, Comegys’ heart had stopped. He’d had a “massive heart attack,” said New Castle County Paramedic Kristina Shorb. Shorb was one of four emergency medical personnel who responded to Comegys’ home that day.
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Quickly, paramedics jumped into action, performing CPR and shocking him with a defibrillator. After about 2½ tense minutes, they brought Comegys back to life. But after transferring him to the care of hospital staff, they knew nothing else of the 70-year-old’s condition.
On Thursday, Comegys was reunited with the two Hockessin Fire Company emergency medical technicians and the two New Castle County paramedics who saved him.
As he hugged the first responders, he smiled wide. Despite describing himself as a dispassionate person, he held back the threat of tears. He said there was nothing that made him “more happy than to meet these folks.”
“Thanks to their quick response and what they did with their expertise and skills, they brought me back and gave me a second chance at life,” Comegys said. “How many people can say that?”
‘Just amazing what they did’
New Castle County Paramedics respond to about 40,000 calls for service annually and most of the time never learn the outcome of their life-saving efforts.
Usually that doesn’t bother the first responders, in part because they always have another patient to focus on. But Comegys’ case stuck with Shorb and her partner, paramedic Mark Plumley.
When they, along with the Hockessin Fire Company EMTs, arrived at Comegys’ home, he was waiting on his front steps for the crew. He smiled as he greeted them and took his time rummaging through his car to find his insurance card.
One of them even had to hurry him along, Comegys remembers, telling him it was time to get in the ambulance.
As they rushed to the hospital, Comegys chatted amicably with the paramedics and described his 2009 heart attack, which occurred as he was playing softball.
Laughing, he told them that within a week of being released from the hospital, he was trying to get back out on the field.
Then he went into cardiac arrest.
Plumley, who has been a paramedic for 22 years, said even he was surprised by how quickly Comegys deteriorated. But more remarkable, he said, was what happened after they revived the man.
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“He was completely fine the rest of the way into the hospital, and we were having conversations with him,” Plumley said. “Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who go into cardiac arrest in front of you, but it’s much rarer that they can make a complete recovery like he did.”
That made Thursday’s reunion even sweeter for the first responders and for Comegys, who believes “God and (his) mother” sent him the fast-acting paramedics.
“I want to keep a relationship with these folks, not just today but in the future,” he said. “It’s just amazing what they did and it’s the least I could do to say thank you.”
Got a story tip or idea? Send to Isabel Hughes at ihughes@delawareonline.com. For all things breaking news, follow her on Twitter at @izzihughes_
