When Guy Thrall took a CPR class through his work months ago he did not know what he learned would save somebody’s life, let alone his best friend of more than 40 years.
In March, Thrall and his best friend Bill Squier, 46, were finishing a run on the Foothills Trail in Orting when Squier suddenly collapsed.
“We were just about done with our run that day,” Squier later said. “We had about 100 yards to go.”
Squier was having a massive heart attack. Later, once he got to Good Samaritan Hospital, the doctor told Squier’s wife, Lisa, that from a scale of one to five, with one being the best case, his heart attack was a five plus.
“It’s called the widow maker,” she said.
When Squier collapsed, Thrall wasn’t thinking about the severity, just that it looked bad and he needed to do something.
Thrall began CPR. He couldn’t feel a pulse and his friend’s breathing was getting shallower.
“For 40 years I’ve known this guy and I didn’t want it to go away,” Thrall said.
The two went through school together at All Saints and graduated from Puyallup High School in 1980. As they grew up their friendship endured. They started families of their own, but made sure to keep in touch.
Sports was always a good place for the two to bond. When they were younger sports like basketball were a place for them to stay fit, be competitive and stay in tune with each other’s lives.
As they got older the bodily grind of team sports was too much, they said, so they turned to running. They would meet on the weekend and run at Rogers High School and when the Foothills Trail opened in Orting they would make the trip to enjoy the scenery, get some exercise and talk in the way life-long friends do.
“We’ve been running together for a long time,” Squier later said.
But this was the first time a potentially fatal situation happened.
Thrall called out for help to two women who were close to them on the trail. No one had a cell phone, but one woman found a man up the trail to call 911, the other helped Thrall until the EMT’s arrived.
The ambulance arrived about seven minutes later. Squier was not responding, but Thrall and the EMT’s continued CPR and got him into the ambulance and on his way to Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup.
“Technically he was dead,” said Art Vazquez, of Orting Fire and Rescue. “What kept him alive was the CPR.”
Even though there wasn’t a pulse, the heart has a rhythm while it’s in arrest, he said. It shakes like as it is struggling to pump blood throughout the body.
By continuing CPR, Thrall and emergency personnel were able to keep blood pumping throughout his body, even though his heart couldn’t do it on its own.
While in the ambulance Squier was hooked-up to a monitor that recognizes different rhythms the heart makes. It searches for a shockable rhythm and then does that.
On the way to the hospital, his heart was restarted and he began to stabilize. His heart had not been pumping for nearly 22 minutes.
“For a full recovery it’s all about minutes,” said Greg Pruitt, of Orting Fire and Rescue.
In nearly 20 years, as a EMT Vazquez has responded to hundreds of heart related calls. The scenario to save someone’s life isn’t always the best. In this case, having Thrall administer CPR, having Squier on a part of the trail that was accessible and having the tools to shock his heart saved his life.
“You couldn’t have asked for a more perfect scenario,” Vasquez said. “They were already doing all the right things.
“I give all the credit to his friend. That’s really what saved him.”
But Squier wasn’t out of trouble yet.
At the hospital, doctors put a stent in his heart to open up the artery and keep blood flowing. The concern now was brain damage.
“They knew they could fix his heart,” Lisa Squier said. “They were worried about his brain.”
Hospital staff put his body into a hyopthermic state to protect cell tissue from dying.
“It was looking pretty grim,” Lisa Squier said. “It wasn’t a good scenario.”
He remained unconscious, as family and friends were at his bedside and began to pray.
“We just really believe,” Lisa Squier said. “We were going past what we could see with our eyes. We were really going on faith.”
His children went to pray by his bedside one last time before going home to recharge and regroup when Squier regained consciousness.
He knew something had happened, but felt fine, he said.
“I was just a little tired,” Squier said.
There was no brain damage and he had survived a heart attack that usually kills people.
She said the cardiologist came up to her after he regained consciousness and said there was no reasonable explanation for how he survived.
“They call him the miracle man,” she said. “When doctors are saying ‘It’s a miracle,’ we gotta believe that it was.”
Thrall got the news his friend was alive, awake and alright on route to the hospital. After the ambulance took his friend to Good Samaritan he was alone on the trail and uncertain what would happen. His wife picked him up and shock resided as emotions took over.
“I just started bawling,” he said. “It’s just something you can’t explain unless you were there.”
Once he made his way to his friend’s bedside, he found out everything would be alright.
“He was laying in bed and said ‘I guess our runs are done for awhile, but we’re still going to walk,’” Thrall said of his first encounter with Squier after the heart attack.
“I just thank the Lord that he is still here,” Thrall said.
One month later, the two were out on the trail again.
In mid-April, Squier, Thrall and their families made a visit to the Orting Fire and Rescue station to meet with the EMT’s and firefighters who came to Squier’s rescue.
It was a chance to show appreciation, Squier said, and a chance to put some names and faces to people who helped save him.
“They need to hear that, too, because so many times it doesn’t turn out good,” he said.
Before meeting with the Orting Fire and Rescue crew that responded to his aide call, Thrall and Squier walked six miles on the very trail where he had his heart attack.
It took awhile for Squier to realize how close he was to death. He has no memory of right before the heart attack to right after he regained consciousness.
“The funny thing is I had no idea,” Squier said. “It’s like it’s lost.”
He learned bits and pieces of what happened from family and friends.
“Physically I feel just like I did before hand,” he said. “I feel like I could go out and run right now.”
Because he felt normal, the gravity of the situation didn’t dawn on him until people told him everything that happened.
When his wife told him the doctors weren’t very optimistic he would make a full recovery, let alone live, he was shocked.
“That was really an eye-opener for me,” Squier said. “It’s like I’m just viewing it from a distance.”
A massive heart attack isn’t supposed to happen to people who take care of themselves by exercising, not smoking or drinking and making attempts to eat right, Squier said. And he is still relatively young.
But it did, he said.
“I can’t go through this without being changed,” Squier said. “It’ really had a profound effect on all of us.”
The effect is far reaching for two friends who grew up together.
Thrall and Squier will continue their walks and eventually runs having survived a worst case scenario and strengthened a friendship that has lasted for decades.
“I can’t even put into words what it means for someone to save your life,” Squier said. “It’s a big faith builder for all of us.
Reach Reporter Chris Albert at 253-841-2481 Ext. 313 or by e-mail at chris.albert@puyallupherald.com.
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