WESTOVER – Some exchanges are just as ordinary – as they are extraordinary.
Such as this one this past Wednesday morning in Westover.
Ron Wenig walked up to Lee Saffel and said, “Hi, Mr. Saffel. Good to see you again, sir.”
Saffel, smiling, shook Wenig’s hand on occasion of their second meeting and said, “You too. And it is great to be here.”
Not that Saffel remembers their first meeting this past February.
Saffel was flat on his back, unconscious. His son, Eli, was desperately doing chest compressions to keep his dad alive.
And Wenig and other first responders arrived – and took over.
Eli Saffel, a 17-year-old Morgantown High student who wants to be a cardiologist, picked up the narrative for his father, who is director of the West Virginia University Press, the school’s in-house publishing arm.
“We had somebody at the house who was working on the roof,” he remembered. “My dad was talking to him. Mid-sentence, and he just dropped.”
“I don’t remember a thing,” Lee Saffel said.
Eli watches medical dramas on occasion and had seen some YouTube videos on how to do CPR, but that was the extent of his medical training, he said with a bemused grin. Still, he went to work.
And that’s why everyone was at the Education Center for Monongalia County Emergency Medical Services in Westover for the morning.
Mon EMS presented Eli and Wenig, a county medic, with its Lifesaver Award for their efforts that day six months ago.
The same recognition went to Walter Joy and Joshua Fletcher, Wening’s fellow responders for Mon EMS.
Zach Lipscomb, Larry Dudley, Louie Shoemaker and Matt Farber of the Brookhaven Volunteer Fire Department received the same accolade.
That’s how many people, especially Saffel’s son, Robby May said, who brought back Saffel’s heartbeat while keeping him stable for the trip to J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital.
May, a former history teacher who directs clinical services for Mon EMS, said Eli, in particular, was the linchpin in the process.
“Nationwide, more than 350,000 suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrests each year,” the director said in prepared remarks.
“Nearly 90% do not survive. But when CPR is started immediately by a bystander, survival rates can double or even triple. Which is why Eli’s decision is so powerful.”
Eli doesn’t have a lot of recall of that day either.
“I was just going on adrenaline,” he said. “I was just thinking about my dad.”
He was already thinking about the medical profession for a career, he said. His dad’s heart attack makes him want to become a cardiologist, he said.
“I can still see him out there,” the son recalled. “I was out sick from school. I’m just glad I was home.”
Lee Saffel’s just glad to be part of the proceedings, he said in a voice thick with emotion.
His daughter, Rhowyn, married in March. He got to walk her down the aisle. He just got back from band camp with Eli, which has turned into a father-son tradition.
“I’m overcome with emotion and gratitude,” the elder Saffel said. “It’s been a journey. I’m still here because of all of you.”
