Miracle on South Walnut Street: Timely CPR by Beacon doctor saves man who suffered cardiac arrest
The Hosinski family attends Senior Hockey Night at Saint Joseph High School.
It was a disappointing end to Senior Night for the South Bend Saint Joseph hockey team.
After its 2-1 loss to Riley High School, Rob and Maureen Hosinski attended a reception for players and parents with their son, Teddy, and daughter, Nora, who was home from college on Christmas break.
They chatted with the other hockey parents, helped clean up afterward and left the Ice Box rink around 11, heading for home on the slick, snowy roads.
Still lamenting the team’s defeat, Rob turned left onto South Walnut Street toward downtown.
Seconds later, the truck started veering toward the side of the road. Maureen turned toward her husband, who had stopped talking mid-sentence.
“Rob!!!” she screamed.
Maureen Hosinski hugs her son, Teddy, on the ice.
His hands and arms lay limp by his side. His head slumped back in his seat.
Maureen quickly grabbed the wheel and steered the truck to the roadside.
She yelled frantically to Nora, who was sitting in the back seat, to call 911 and get help. Teddy had driven separately.
Maureen grabbed for the lever to guide the driver’s seat back. Using all her upper body strength, she pushed on her husband’s chest with the palms of her hands and gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
“I was doing CPR to the best of my ability, but you could tell he was gone. I said goodbye to him,” she said softly through tears. “I wanted him to hear my voice. I told him we’ve done everything right as parents. I did what I could, wanting my efforts at CPR to protect his brilliant mind.”
Nora, meanwhile, ran out into the street, frantically waving her arms.
***
Chris Zielinski had just pulled out of the Ice Box parking lot and was driving by the Hosinski’s truck when he recognized Nora’s pink cotton candy puffer coat. Their families spent many hours together over the years, as parents of school athletes do, on bleachers and fields watching their kids compete.
Chris stopped in the street and rolled down his window.
“Chris, Chris …” Nora said, barely being able to form words. She explained how something was wrong with her dad. She hoped Chris could help, since he is a medical doctor and anesthesiologist at Memorial Hospital.
Dr. Chris Zielinski, Beacon anesthesiologist, performed CPR on Rob Hosinski.
Dr. Zielinski sprinted to their driver’s side door. He saw that Rob was unresponsive.
“Does he have a pulse?” he asked Maureen.
“I don’t think so,” she responded.
Dr. Zielinski couldn’t find a pulse on the side of his neck either, and Rob’s skin was turning blue. He took over and began performing CPR in the cramped front seat as Maureen leaned back momentarily in the car in shock.
“I began chest compressions and showed Moe how to perform a jaw thrust. I told her to maintain that position the best she could, and most importantly to blow air into his mouth.”
Their efforts continued as other hockey parents came over when they saw the commotion. A few of the hockey dads pulled Rob’s limp body onto the ground where Dr. Zielinski continued performing CPR from a better angle.
Nora said it felt like bad dream.
“At one point, my mom and I both dropped to our knees. It was out of our hands,” Nora says. “We were hugging and felt so helpless. I was thinking, ‘Is this really happening to my dad?’ He is a good person, such a solid dad. He does not deserve to die.”
Police officers and an ambulance arrived and Dr. Zielinski identified himself as a Beacon physician and anesthesiologist. He helped paramedics lift Rob onto a stretcher and into the ambulance.
Paramedics placed monitors on Rob and started an IV. Dr. Zielinski quickly gathered the instruments he needed to intubate. He knew they couldn’t afford to wait. Once he inserted an emergency breathing tube, he used a self-inflating bag to manually pump oxygen into Rob’s lungs for his brain and other vital organs.
“He knew every second mattered,” Maureen says.
With Rob’s airway secure, the monitors started showing signs of an irregular heart rhythm known as ventricular fibrillation. He required immediate defibrillation, or a shock to his heart to restore his normal heartbeat.
A depiction of an ambulance rushing to help a victim.
Dr. Zielinski and the paramedics worked together to continue pumping oxygen into his lungs while also placing AED paddles on Rob’s chest.
“Clear!”
Still an irregular rhythm.
“Clear!”
They heard and saw a regular heartbeat. Rob’s blood pressure was still low, and he remained unresponsive to sounds and touch. But he was alive.
Dr. Zielinski jumped out of the ambulance and drove straight to Memorial Hospital, which was only minutes away. During that drive, he called the emergency room to let them know a 54-year-old man who suffered cardiac arrest was on the way.
***
The Memorial Hospital cardiac care team met Dr. Zielinski and the ambulance at the Emergency Room doors. Maureen and Nora were taken to a family room.
“We immediately hooked Rob up to monitors and got an EKG. It showed that Rob was suffering a heart attack,” Dr. Zielinski says. The team administered a blood thinner to prevent further injury to the heart while the cardiac team assessed the urgent situation.
The clock was ticking.
Dr. John Katsaropoulos, a Beacon interventional cardiologist, explained to the Hosinskis that Rob had a clogged artery that was causing his heart attack. The blockage was preventing the normal flow of blood to his heart. He needed to undergo a procedure called angioplasty to open the artery and a small metal mesh tube called a stent would be placed in the artery to keep it from closing again.
They immediately took Rob to the cardiac catheterization lab to start the procedure. It proved very important that Rob had received CPR right away.
Dr. John Katsaropoulos, Beacon interventional cardiologist, and Dr. Luke White, Beacon critical care and pulmonary specialist, cared for Rob Hosinski at Memorial Hospital.
“The quick response of the bystanders in performing CPR and activating the EMS system was paramount in keeping blood and oxygen flowing to his vital organs,” Dr. Katsaropoulos says. “And the prompt catheterization and intervention to open the closed artery stopped the heart attack and limited the size of the heart attack and heart muscle damage.”
Following this procedure, Rob was taken to the ICU.
There, the team followed cardiac arrest protocol that included hypothermia. For 24 hours, Rob underwent medically induced cooling to decrease the amount of oxygen his body was using to allow his heart and brain to recover.
Maureen remembers how it felt to see her husband in this fragile state. “I’d read about therapeutic hypothermia, and I understood what intubation and ventilation were, but I never truly understood until it happened to Rob.” She felt scared and helpless, not knowing whether Rob, her husband of 25 years, would wake up or ever be the same again. “It was a harrowing experience.”
Even Dr. Zielinski felt worried.
“Did we do a good enough job with CPR to keep his brain preserved?” he wondered. “At this point, all we could do was wait.”
***
Rob started to wake up, showing some sign of disorientation, three days after his heart attack.
“It’s totally foggy, and I can’t pinpoint what I remember from the hospital,” Rob says. “I know they had been very worried about brain injury. Everyone was relieved when I started talking with people, telling stories and apparently I was pretty funny.”
Rob had received an outpouring of texts and visitors. Messages came from nurses, doctors and other hospital staff as well as family and friends in the community. Dr. Luke White, a critical care and pulmonary specialist working in the Memorial ICU, went out of his way to shake Rob’s hand and tell him he was a very lucky man — for two reasons.
First, because he was clearly well-liked.
And secondly because his outlook looked good.
“I don’t get to say this very often in my position, but I think your husband is going to make a full recovery,” Dr. White told Maureen.
Maureen and Rob Hosinski pose with their son, Teddy, at Saint Joseph High School graduation in June.
Dr. Chris Zielinski felt ecstatic to hear the great news from Maureen and his physician colleagues.
“Obviously, he was a bit confused by the ordeal, but he improved enough back to baseline to be discharged home before Christmas,” Dr. Zielinski says. “It’s truly remarkable that he did so well. I cannot stress enough the importance of starting CPR promptly on people who suffer cardiac arrest.”
Rob eased back into his normal work schedule and vacations with family since completing the cardiac rehabilitation program at Beacon in March. He credits the program and staff for helping him recover both physically and emotionally.
He still doesn’t remember anything from that day.
He remembers riding his exercise bike and taking off his cycling shoes hours before the hockey game. But he doesn’t remember the photos on the ice with Teddy, or any of the Senior Night festivities. He doesn’t remember cheering on Saint Joe, staying after the game to help stack chairs, or getting behind the wheel to drive home.
“You have this ‘why me’ kind of thing,” Rob explains about feeling depressed after his heart attack. “As an adult, you want to be the protector. You feel guilty to have put your wife and your college-age daughter through that. You want to be their protector.”
“So many things could have happened. I’m grateful for my wife for starting CPR, for my daughter who called 911, for Chris and his quick actions, and for everyone who helped me and our family. I’m grateful for the whole system. It could have turned out so much worse.”
Nora appreciated what she calls “a crazy amount of support” from the community. She says her dad is still the same person as he was before that night.
“He’s back to sending us funny memes in our family group chat, and he still loves IU,” Nora says. “Life is very temporary and we have to be thankful for all that we have and who we have. We’re all so thankful he’s still here.”
Maureen and Rob Hosinski recently pictured together at a graduation party.
Maureen is grateful to Dr. Zielinski for coming to their rescue.
“Everyone at Beacon who we knew, and many we didn’t know, were amazing and we are grateful. But we will always have a special bond now with Chris. He never left us that night, and he stayed in close contact until we were back home. He was wonderful. He saved my husband’s life. Rob was lucky.”
Minutes made a difference between life or death that snowy December night on Walnut Street.
But when Rob’s heart failed, a community with heart came to his rescue.
“The most important actions that determine whether someone survives cardiac arrest all happen before the hospital — if the arrest is witnessed, if CPR is performed and if the appropriate shocks are delivered,” Dr. White said. “It depends on a community, and Rob Hosinski is alive and well because of that community.”
Teddy, Nora, Molly, Maureen and Rob Hosinski.
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