Neighbor, police officer credited for lifesaving actions

Rose Larson and her husband Bruce were watching TV last Memorial Day weekend when all of a sudden something went terribly wrong. Thanks to the emergency training and rapid response of a neighbor and an Aurora police officer, Bruce survived a life-threatening heart attack that day and seven months later the two men received a Life Saving Award from the City of Aurora.
“Those guys are both very special,” Rose said of her neighbor Carlin Engert and Aurora Police Sgt. Nate Friesen. “It’s one thing to be trained, but to do CPR when you are trying to get somebody going again that’s a lot of pressure. They were both just so awesome that day. I know it was hard on them, and I think it was even harder because they know the family. We have good people here and we just feel so lucky.”
Engert and Friesen were both presented Life Saving Award certificates during last week’s Aurora City Council meeting, where they were applauded by city leaders as well as members of the Larson family. Both men reflected on their actions in later interviews, saying the training they had received proved invaluable at the moment of truth.
“We were out in the yard barbecuing with our friends, deciding who was going to play croquet, when their daughter (Melissa) came out and asked if my wife Chris was home (thinking she was a nurse because she works at the hospital in Aurora,)” Engert recalled. “I could see in her face there was something stressful going on so I asked what was happening and she said, ‘I think my dad is having a stroke.’”
Engert and his wife rushed next door to find Bruce unresponsive in a chair, which is when instincts and more than 20 years of CPR training kicked in.
“He wasn’t breathing so we got him on the floor and about that time the officer (Friesen) came in and it was like we both knew what we were doing,” Engert said. “You practice these things over and over and over, but I’ve never done it in real life.”
Engert has worked for years at the Iams plant west of Aurora, having made a decision long ago to get trained in CPR and general first aid. He currently serves as the Critical Response Team leader at the Mars Petcare facility.
“I started about 22 years ago when my wife and I were concerned about my mom and dad,” he shared. “I had heard all these stories about people not being prepared and it’s their child or somebody else’s child. My dad always told me that if you can help somebody, it doesn’t matter what nationality they are or who they are, whether it’s your worst enemy or your best friend, you help. I think that’s the way everybody should be.”
In this case it was a neighbor and friend of 20 years who needed help, and Engert said he was glad he was there at the right time and place.
“It’s a valuable learning experience for anyone who wonders if it’s worth it to do the training,” he said. “It definitely is. When you need it, you need it.”
Friesen, who has been a police officer for 16 years in Aurora, knew both the Larsons well and was concerned when he pulled up to a familiar address.
“A guy kind of gets worried because you don’t know what you’re getting into and when I got there Red (Bruce’s nickname) was in pretty bad shape,” he recalled. “Carlin was right there, we got the AED (Automated Electronic Device) hooked up and it said no shock. We get trained through the ambulance service here in town and they do a great job, so we prepare for things like this and I mean the training just took over and we started doing compressions. We did CPR until the ambulance showed up and that’s when Cory Eckhoff took over, and they got him out of the house and on his way.”
This isn’t the first time Friesen has had to use his CPR training, but being able to help someone he knew was meaningful.
“It’s a small community and I’ve made a lot of friendships here, so it’s nice to be able to help people out when something bad happens,” he said. “A lot of times we get called for bad situations, and this was a bad situation but it had a good outcome, so it was just nice to be able to be part of that.”

Life and death scene
Thinking back to the hectic scene on the Larsons’ kitchen floor back on May 28, Engert said very little was said as he and Friesen quickly recognized that their actions were a matter of life and death.
“It was a good thing that he was just as qualified and trained because it was like he knew what I was doing and I knew what he was doing,” Engert said, though the two men didn’t know each other prior to that fateful day. 
Rose and Melissa looked on as the two men began administering CPR, with Friesen doing chest compressions and Engert blowing air into Bruce’s mouth. Rose estimated that her husband had not been breathing for approximately eight minutes before the life-saving procedures began.
“He was pretty much gone, but they kept working hard,” she recalled. “And then the rest of the EMTs got there and everybody was fantastic. They finally got a pulse and we got him in an ambulance, but we read later on a report that they lost him three more times.”
Engert credited the Aurora EMTs for delivering a shock that kick-started Bruce’s heart, then applying an automated chest compression device to help continue the CPR.
“That’s the most amazing machine I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said of a device designed to apply consistent compressions without damaging the ribs or chest muscles. “They got that hooked up to him, got the backboard under him and off he went to the hospital.”
Rose shared that her husband had to continue fighting for his life as he was airlifted to Bryan Hospital in Lincoln, where after four days doctors were considering unplugging the ventilator fearing that Bruce had gone too long without getting oxygen to the brain. At that point a heart specialist was called in and the tide finally began to turn, for the good.
“She could see his eyes move and she started poking and prodding him, though he doesn’t remember any of it,” she recalled. “We spent a month at Bryan and finally were able to bring him home. Physically he’s fine. He looks really good, but for a long time he couldn’t remember people.”
About two months later doctors prescribed different medication, which slowly brought some of Bruce’s memory back.
“About two months out, almost three, he started to know who people were,” she said. “It just took a while to get here. The kids (daughter Melissa and son Rob) are here and they help me take care of him and we’ve had a lot of help from a lot of people.”
Rose continues to work at Casey’s in Aurora, though she has stepped back from her previous position as manager. She spends a lot of time with Bruce now, helping him around the house and taking him along wherever she goes.
“He can pretty much take care of himself, but when we first got him home it was like retraining a kid,” she said, chuckling. “Melissa works from home so she’s there during the day and my son is off three days of the week so they’re pretty much here during the day. That’s been a big help.”
Engert shared that he too struggled with the day’s events as his neighbor fought to regain his health and memory.
“I think it’s just normal for ambulance people to think what if …,” he said. “But this is different when it’s your neighbor and this happens. At first I had guilt, wondering if I did the right thing, which I think is just human nature. It took a little while afterwards because you don’t know what’s transpiring or what’s going to come of it, but now that I see him walking out of his house, getting in his car and driving off, you think, yes, I did the right thing, for the family’s sake.”
As for the Life Saving Award presented to Engert and Friesen, Rose said she was happy to see the two men recognized publicly for their heroic actions.
“Carlin and Chris have been awesome neighbors and I respect them for that and I knew Nate from working at Casey’s, where we have alarms going off all the time,” she said. “We just have good people here. You know the people at Bryan complimented Aurora, saying that Bruce looked fantastic for what he’d been through. He didn’t have any broken or cracked ribs, not even any bruises, which they said was amazing. They complimented Aurora EMTs too because they said you don’t see that after what he went through. It’s hard to say thank you to everybody who pitched in.”