A Sedona woman received the greatest gift of all this Christmas when her husband came home from the hospital Dec. 24, after having a heart attack Dec. 5.
In 1955, Nell Benson asked Wayne Bell to their high school senior prom in Pennsylvania.
“I was afraid to ask because I thought she was too pretty,” Bell said.
By Alison Ecklund
A Sedona woman received the greatest gift of all this Christmas when her husband came home from the hospital Dec. 24, after having a heart attack Dec. 5.
In 1955, Nell Benson asked Wayne Bell to their high school senior prom in Pennsylvania.
“I was afraid to ask because I thought she was too pretty,” Bell said.
The two parted ways, married others and didn’t meet again until 2001 when Bell passed through Sedona.
Both widowed, the two locked eyes and it was if nothing changed, Bell said. They’ve been together ever since, marrying in 2006.
On Dec. 5, the couple was attending a high school performance at the Elks Lodge on Airport Road when Bell suffered a heart attack.
“I turned around to look at the kids and the next thing I know, I was in the hospital,” Bell said.
Benson was watching the performance when she heard Bell make a strange noise. When she turned to look, his head was back and his eyes and mouth were open.
“I jumped up and yelled ‘Emergency! Is there a doctor here?’” Benson said.
There wasn’t a doctor, but there was Dixie Carlson, a retired registered nurse, who reached Bell first.
“I heard the emergency and I turned around,” Carlson said. “I’ve been in that situation before where I’m first on scene.”
Carlson got help getting Bell to the floor where she immediately started CPR until Sedona Fire District paramedics arrived.
“What was important in this particular situation is that bystanders stepped in and initiated the CPR,” SFD Public Information Officer Gary Johnson said. “It’s critical that CPR be started on a patient who is in full cardiac arrest as soon as possible.”
Firefighter medics from SFD Station No. 4 in Uptown received the call at 6:41 p.m. and arrived at the Elks Lodge at 6:46 p.m.
“We want to be there within 4 to 6 minutes,” captain Jeff Wassell said. “At the beginning of 4 minutes they can start to go brain dead, so the bystanders starting CPR was crucial to his progress.”
Firefighters took over and began Continuous-Chest Compression CPR, a new version of CPR that doesn’t involve mouth-to-mouth ventilations.
Once Bell began having spontaneous breaths and a heartbeat and blood pressure, he was transported to the Sedona Medical Center, then to the Verde Valley Medical Center where he remained until Dec. 7.
On Dec. 7 he was flown to the Flagstaff Medical Center where he underwent open-heart surgery Dec. 8 and an abdomen operation Dec. 11.
“Due to the lack of blood flow to the intestines, the cells in the intestine died, creating a problem,” Benson said. “Seventy-five percent of the large intestine was removed.”
Blocked arteries and an arrhythmia caused his heart attack, said Bell, who has had two previous heart attacks, so this time doctors installed a defibrillator/pacemaker combination.
Home for Christmas with daily check-ups from a nurse and physical therapist, the couple was grateful for everyone who helped at the Elks Lodge that night.
“Several people held my hand and kept me up on what was going on,” Benson said. “The firemen, the EMTs, the policeman, everyone was so nice, so polite and so helpful.”
Although Bell was black and blue from the medics’ chest compressions, he praised SFD.
“The fire district is an excellent unit,” he said. “I’d rather be black and blue than dead.”
Alison Ecklund can be reached at 282-7795, ext. 125, or e-mail
aecklund@larsonnewspapers.com
