As much as Gary Colberg gave of his heart to the Activities and Recreation Center, the ARC community gave back much more on Dec. 22 — by giving new life to his heart after it stopped beating.

The heroes included a physician and two other Good Samaritans with CPR training, all of whom were in the ARC fitness room at the same time as Colberg, and two student employees who raced in with an automated external defibrillator, or AED.

In a 40-year career at UC Davis, Colberg led intramurals and sport clubs, and played key roles in the development of the Department of Campus Recreation and in the multiyear planning process for the ARC, which opened in 2004. Today, he said, the ARC means more to him than ever.

He retired in June 2006, and, in a Dateline UC Davis interview at the time, vowed to “get back into shape. And he did, by going to the ARC almost every day, usually in the morning like he did Dec. 22.

He followed his usual routine that day, arriving about 6 a.m., working on an elliptical trainer for a half hour before switching to a treadmill. And that is where he collapsed, around 6:45 a.m.

The 69-year-old would learn later that he suffered arrhythmia — an irregular heartbeat, and, in his case, as irregular as it can get — likely caused by a chemical imbalance, he said. An angiogram would reveal that his heart was in good shape, with no clogging of the arteries as might be suspected in a heart attack.

Today, he is recuperating at his home in Davis, after a six-day hospital stay that included surgery to have a defibrillator put in his chest — in the event that an irregular heartbeat strikes again.

Story and photos from Colberg's emotional reunion Jan. 4 with his rescuers.

A physician across the room

As often as Colberg came in to exercise in the morning, so too did Mike Molina, a physician who attended UC Davis as an undergraduate. While Colberg worked on a treadmill that December day, Molina lifted weights on the other side of the fitness room.

He had just about finished his workout when, suddenly, “I saw some commotion going on,” he said. “Apparently someone was down.”

Molina, a third-year resident in Sutter Health’s Family Practice Residence Program in Sacramento, ran across the room and assessed Colberg’s condition: He was unconscious, he was unresponsive, he had no pulse.

Molina started chest compressions. Another gymgoer and UC Davis graduate, Leslie Whiteford, performed mouth-to-month breathing. Whiteford teaches sixth grade at Willett Elementary School in Davis.

At the same time, third-year student Cuong Nguyen, at work as the member services attendant in the fitness room, alerted his colleague Susan Saephanh at the ARC’s front desk, right outside the fitness room, and radioed the building supervisor, Megan Sullivan, who was in the ARC Pavilion next door.

Sullivan called the campus’s emergency dispatch center as she ran to the ARC, where she came upon Saephanh just as she grabbed the automated external defibrillator from the wall outside the fitness room. Like Nguyen, Sullivan and Saephanh also are third-year students.

Molina said: “I think what really helped us was having that AED at the ready. I see that thing every day when I walk to the exercise room. But you hope you never have to use it.”

The defibrillator is one of two in the ARC, and one of nearly 40 in UC Davis buildings, on and off the central campus. Additional AEDs are deployed in campus police cars and firetrucks. See separate story to learn more about the campus’s Enhanced Life-Saving Program.

Calm, cool and collected

Sullivan and Saephanh, who are certified in first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation and the use of the AED, stayed calm, cool and collected, ready to put their training to work.

Inside the fitness room, they encountered Molina and Whiteford, and asked if they had been trained in CPR. Yes, they had. The student employees also learned of Molina’s status as a physician.

Molina credited Sullivan and Saephanh for responding so quickly with the AED. Plus, he said, “They really helped keep people calm. It was less chaotic than you might expect.”

Whiteford estimated that two dozen people were in the fitness room at the time of the incident. Among them was John Meyer, vice chancellor of Administrative and Resource Management.

"The response and coolness under pressure from the ARC staff was very impressive," Meyer said in an e-mail to John Campbell, director of the Department of Campus Recreation. "The supervisor, Megan, seemed quite competent as she went about gathering information for reporting. ... From an onlooker's perspective, the response of ARC staff could not have been better."

Meyer also inquired about protocol to ensure that the ARC staff members received whatever support they needed after having been involved in such a traumatic scene, and Campbell responded that, yes, Campus Rec has an established protocol for assisting students after these types of events.

With Sullivan and Saephanh having arrived with the AED, Molina asked out loud if anyone else knew CPR. Nelson Randolph, a safety officer with UC Davis Grounds and Landscape Services, said he did — and he took over chest compressions while Molina hooked up the AED.

Randolph said he usually works out on a treadmill right in front of Colberg, and they talk regularly.

“For some reason, I don’t know why, I stayed a little longer than usual that day,” Randolph said in an interview several hours after the incident. “It was a blessing that I stayed later, and helped save a life. I was glad to be there.”

Molina applied the AED’s sensor pads to Colberg’s chest, and the device assessed his vital signs. The AED indicated that he needed a shock — then delivered it automatically.

But Colberg did not respond — he still had no pulse. That does not mean that the AED was not helpful, Molina said. “It may have been that his heart returned to a normal rhythm but was unable to attain enough pressure to provide a pulse, at that point,” he told Dateline UC Davis.

“It's unclear, I suppose, because there was no monitor available, but I do believe that ‘jump-starting’ his heart early was very important to his resuscitation.”

Excellent job, excellent outcome

After the AED delivered its shock, Randolph and Whiteford continued with CPR.

Molina estimated that he, Whiteford and Randolph administered CPR for five to seven minutes, never stopping, except momentarily when using the AED.

“Then the wonderful UC Davis Fire Department and Police Department showed up,” said Molina, who received a bachelor’s degree at UC Davis in 2000 before attending Stanford Medical School. (He also holds a Master of Public Health degree from UC Davis.)

Fire Capt. Nate Hartinger said the emergency call came in at 6:52 a.m. The fire station is just around the corner, and Hartinger and his crew made it to the ARC in three minutes, around the same time as an American Medical Response ambulance.

The ambulance crew and firefighters took over CPR, and the AMR crew subsequently shocked Colberg twice more — and his pulse returned.

In Hartinger’s view, everything “worked the way it should.”

“Everyone did an excellent job,” he added.

Whiteford did not see Colberg fall to the floor. “I heard it,” said Whiteford, who was on a stationary bicycle at the time. “Everyone kind of looked in that direction.”

Whiteford, who graduated from UC Davis in 1983, said she went to see if she could help, “and it turned out I could.”

She and her husband, Kevin, who graduated from UC Davis in 1985, pulled Colberg out from among the treadmills, giving the rescuers more room to perform CPR.

Leslie Whiteford recalled hearing someone call out for a doctor. “And there was one there, bless his heart,” she said.

“It was one of those situations where everyone came together to make a difference, and in this case, fortunately, it made a positive difference.”

Read more

Two weeks after his collapse, Gary Colberg sits down for a visit with the first people to come to his aid.

AEDs: UC Davis has deployed nearly 50 of them, and offers free training in CPR-AED classes twice a month.

"Gary Colberg: Creatively focused on students and sports," Dateline UC Davis (April 14, 2006)