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September 21, 2018
Bob Lischke is a trim and fit 69-year-old. He and his wife, Theresa, walk 2.5 to 3 miles a day.
Bob Lischke visited St. Rose of Lima School in Murfreesboro to thank the teachers who responded when he suffered a heart attack while waiting to pick up his grandson after school. He also visited his grandson’s classmates to thank them for all the cards they sent while he was in the hospital. Lischey, his wife Theresa, and grandson Cade Redmond, are pictured with the teachers who responded to help him, from left, Renee Loper, Jodi Vehr, Julie Menke, Colleen Hawkins and Ronnie Francescon. Photo by Andy Telli
But on Wednesday, Sept. 5, while he was in line to pick up his grandson Cade Redmond at St. Rose of Lima School in Murfreesboro, his heart stopped working.
“I was sitting in the car with Cade. We were talking about homework,” Lischke said. “The next thing I remember, I was in the ambulance.”
He was in the ambulance because of the quick thinking and work of several teachers at St. Rose who worked to resuscitate Lischke, using an Automatic External Defibrillator to shock him, and their CPR training, until the emergency medical technicians arrived.
“We worked on him 8-12 minutes,” said Jodi Vehr, the first teacher to respond. “It seemed like forever.”
The Rutherford County Emergency Medical Services office on its Facebook page posted a photo of the St. Rose teachers, described their fast action, and said, “Today they saved a life!”
On Thursday, Sept. 20, Lischke returned to St. Rose to express his thanks to the teachers for saving his life and to his grandson’s sixth grade classmates for sending him cards that helped brighten his hospital stay.
On the day of his attack, he had gone to pick up his grandson like he does every day.
Vehr noticed that his car wasn’t moving and started walking that way when Cade McRedmond jumped out of the car and told her something was wrong with his grandfather.
When she got to the car, “I understood something serious was wrong,” said Vehr, a fifth grade teacher at St. Rose for 15 years. “He had stopped breathing, basically.”
“It was very scary,” she said. When Lischke didn’t respond, she used her radio to tell someone to call 911.
While Assistant Principal Colleen Hawkins got on the phone, eighth grade teacher Julie Menke and physical education teacher Ronnie Francescon helped Vehr get Lischke out of the car and started performing CPR.
Pre-kindergarten teacher Renee Loper ran to get the AED unit in the school so they could start trying to shock his heart back into action.
“It was amazing,” said Hawkins. “Everybody did what they needed to do. It was a lot of teamwork and then a lot of divine intervention.”
All of the staff at St. Rose, as required by guidelines for all schools in the Diocese of Nashville, had been trained in CPR, first aid and in using the AED.
“It was the first time we had to use it,” Hawkins said. “And hopefully the last.”
The teachers began to use the AED unit, which had been donated to the school by Saint Thomas Rutherford Hospital.
“The AED actually told us exactly step by step what to do,” Vehr said. “That sure was a good feeling having the AED remind us what to do and having each other out there supporting us and taking turns.”
The teachers had shocked Lischke several times before the EMT’s arrived and shocked him one more time. Lischke finallly responded. They rushed him to Saint Thomas Rutherford and he eventually was transferred to Saint Thomas Hospital West in Nashville before being released five days later.
The staff had undergone the training just several weeks before Lischke’s attack, Vehr noted. “Sometimes we grumble about training,” she said. “I guarantee you I will never grumble about training. … It has a whole new meaning now.”
“The EMTs, they were extremely proud,” Hawkins said. “They said everybody did exactly what they should have done. One said if he ever had a heart attack, he would want to have it here. … It was very humbling.”
“We’re actually offering a CPR class for parents and parishioners because of this,” Vehr said. “It brought such awareness for the need for training.”
And Saint Thomas Rutherford is going to donate a second AED unit to the school, said Sister Catherine Marie, O.P., St. Rose’s principal.
Once Lischke was in the hospital recovering, he received another dose of support from the St. Rose community, in the form of the cards made for him by his grandson’s classmates.
“I was kind of depressed before he brought those cards,” Lischke said. “It just lifted my spirits.”
His family taped all the cards to the windows in his hospital room, and every visitor asked about them, Lischke said. It made him proud of his grandson and his classmates, he added. “It meant a lot to me.”
“All of it is very humbling,” Sister Catherine Marie said. “My reaction, as well as my teachers, is we did what anyone should do. … I’m proud and pleased that our staff was able to all pull together and respond to God’s prompting.”