Russell Pusc woke up in a panic in the middle of the night. He was intubated and lying in a hospital bed. Streaks of white-hot pain ran across his chest as he fought with the tube inside his mouth to take a breath.
His wife, Jana Pusc, came to his side and held his hand. He knew her, but he didn't know where he was or why he was there. Russell did not remember anything from the last few days and he'd eventually forget most of his time in the hospital.
In the coming days, Russell would have to piece the story together of how he ended up at the Intensive Care Unit of MultiCare Yakima Memorial Hospital.
A few days before, on Jan. 18, the 60-year-old Russell had suffered a heart attack while skiing with his friends in the White Pass Ski Area. His heart stopped beating for 16 minutes while a friend, a bystander, ski patrol and doctors present on the hill that day raced to restart his heart.
He survived, and three weeks later, he has surprised his doctors by making an almost complete recovery. He and his wife expressed their gratitude to everyone who helped keep him alive.
"It's almost surreal thinking about how close he came (to dying)," Jana said. "He was clinically dead for 16 minutes. I've been talking to several of the people who were involved in saving his life and they think it's surreal too. We're just so thankful for all of them. You hear about this happening and a lot of the time the story doesn't have the same happy ending that we got."
An emergency on the slopes
A recently retired Toutle-area teacher, Russell was at White Pass that day warming up for an upcoming ski trip to Utah to test some new gear with his friend Donald Clark, the owner of a water and winter sports shop in Longview.
Though Clark and Russell had been friends for years, this was their first time skiing together. The two stopped in the middle of a run when Russell said he was having trouble catching his breath. It was unusual, as Russell had always been a fit and health-conscious person.
"He (Russell) came up to me, stopped and said 'I'm a little bit winded,'" Clark said. "And then he was down."
The day was foggy and windy. Clark, stopped below Russell, called to him when he saw him on the ground, assuming he'd laid down to take a break.
"Are you OK?" Clark called to Russell, shouting to cut through the wind. No response.
Clark popped off his skis and walked up the hill to Russell.
"I rolled him over and as soon as I did, I could see he was in trouble," Clark said. "His eyes were rolled into the back of his head and I couldn't see any breathing."
Clark called 911 but saw he had no service. He put his phone in his pocket and started searching for Russell's phone, hoping maybe it'd have a signal.
As he looked for the phone, another skier stopped and asked if anyone needed help. After Clark explained the situation, the skier, who Clark said was named Ray, volunteered to start CPR.
As he did, Clark heard a voice coming from his chest pocket where he'd stored his phone. The 911 call went through and a dispatcher was trying to get his attention.
The dispatcher reached the White Pass ski patrol and Clark and Ray took turns administering CPR to Russell.
Around three minutes later, ski patrol was on the scene.
Ski patrol arrived, along with a veterinarian, Amy Eilbeck, who was skiing in the area and volunteered to help.
After an unsuccessful attempt at resuscitating Russell with a defibrillator, Eilbeck administered chest compressions to Russell, kickstarting his pulse and fracturing his sternum and multiple ribs in the process, which is common.
Russell was loaded into a toboggan. A member of the ski patrol then pulled him more than two miles to the other side of the mountain where he was taken to an aid room.
Around that time, Dr. Brian Padilla, a MultiCare Yakima Memorial Hospital Emergency Department physician, was sitting in a ski lift with his family. That's when he saw an emergency announcement on the hill asking for physicians in the area to go to the ski patrol aid room.
A volunteer ski patrol member for more than 20 years, Padilla made his way there.
"I called the head patroller that I know there and he informed me that he needed me as soon as possible and that he had a patient in a toboggan on the floor of his aid room that was dying," Padilla said. "So we skied like a bat out of hell to the aid room and rendered aid to Mr. Pusc, who was not responding to us."
Getting to Yakima
Padilla, along with another MultiCare colleague and a paramedic, looked over Russell as an ambulance made its way to White Pass. The day was too snowy for a helicopter to transport Russell.
The group of doctors and paramedics stabilized Russell's blood pressure and breathing while they waited for the ambulance. During that time, Padilla called ahead to MultiCare, alerting his colleagues in the Emergency Department to expect a heart attack victim and to ready the cath lab.
When the ambulance arrived, Russell still needed help breathing. A ski patrol member volunteered to take the drive down to Yakima in the ambulance and assist Russell with his breathing using a hand ventilator.
"He was quickly eyeballed in the Emergency Department," Padilla said. "His vital signs were stable but still needing a lot of support."
Russell went into surgery, where Dr. Ralph McLaughlin did emergency heart surgery and cleared a blocked artery in his heart.
Russell spent the next seven days in the hospital.
Around the time Russell was being transported to Yakima, Jana got the call her husband had a heart attack.
"The phone rang several times and I saw that it was Don's phone," Jana said. "I thought, 'that is not going to be good news."
Jana spoke with Amy Eilbeck, who Don Clark thought would be better at delivering the news.
After being filled in on her husband's status, Jana started the five-hour drive to Yakima.
"It was a lot to take in," Jana said. "Then the phone rang again. It was Amy calling me back and asking if I would tell Russell that I loved him. She was alluding to the fact that I may not talk to him again."
By the time Jana arrived at the hospital in Yakima, Russell was in a stable condition and had been moved from the Emergency Department to the ICU.
Russell returned home a week later. Though he still had chest pain, it only took him a few weeks to feel like his old self.
On his most recent visit to his cardiologist, Russell was told he can ski again in April, something he plans to do. Rather than skiing with friends however, the couple is planning a reunion of sorts at White Pass, where they will invite everyone involved in keeping Russell alive and getting him safely to Yakima.
"In this case, it took a village," Jana said. "So many people had to come together and be willing to help Russell. I'm just thankful that's what happened. He might not have made it off that hill alive otherwise."
