Friends and strangers rush to restart a young man’s heart

On July 1, Logan Hillhouse, 17, was going about his usual duties as a dockhand at Pontiac Cove Marina when his heart stopped unexpectedly. It stopped without warning, without any related health history and, doctors say now, without any reason they've been able to diagnose so far.

This is the story of how a group of friends and strangers rushed to help Logan – and made the difference between life and death. 

Closing time at the marina 

It was getting close to the marina's 8 p.m. closing time, and that Monday's two marina employees, Logan and shift leader Jadrien Hyatt, 22, were sitting together, talking. They were ready to close up, but then a pontoon boat pulled in for fuel. 

Logan got up and walked toward the boat as it idled in, ready to help them tie up and then pump gas for them. On his way there, he grabbed an overhead rafter and did three pullups.

"He was just being a boy, trying to show off for the boat coming in as he was going to help them," Jadrien said.

Lutie school board member Carl Kruger and his fiancee Sandra VanMetre had been out on the lake with their friend Chris Lyle and his girlfriend Leah in Chris' new boat. As Chris guided the pontoon boat into the marina's fuel dock that evening, he recognized the smiling young man coming to help them. 

"He starts doing pullups, and Chris started saying things like, 'That's my man Logan! Hey, Logan, buddy. You're looking good. Look at you go,'" Carl said. "He was literally coming to us, and then he just fell." Carl said they thought Logan was "playing around. But he didn't get up."

Carl's fiancee Sandra, a high school teacher in Mountain Home, Arkansas, quickly got out of the boat and went to Logan. "He was actually kind of flailing, and when we got to him, all his muscles were tight, with his arms in front of him," she said. One of Sandra's classroom students had suffered a seizure, and she felt sure Logan was having one too. 

"The problem was, once the seizure stopped, he didn't come back out of it," Sandra said. "We kept waiting for him to wake up. We were yelling his name, trying to get him to come back to us."

Sandra and Chris turned Logan onto his side and asked Jadrien to bring them water and ice to put on Logan, hoping that would revive him. Sandra rubbed Logan's sternum, Carl said, "but he was starting to lose consciousness." 

Jadrien sat beside Logan, telling him, "Wake up. You've gotta move. Wake up, Logan."

But he didn't wake up.  

The marina owners

Pontiac Cove Marina manager Jabet Wade and her husband, Matt, were at their home that quiet evening, leaving Jadrien and Logan to close the marina at 8 p.m. 

The Wades live down a dirt road about a mile from the marina, and that night they were enjoying supper with Jabet's parents, marina owners Tim and Johnna Morgan, who live nearby, and Jabet's brother, Caldwell Morgan, and his wife Kate, who were visiting from Atlanta. The siblings have five kids between them, and that night all five youngsters were attending Vacation Bible School at nearby Frontier Baptist Church.

At around 7:40 p.m., Jabet's cell phone rang. It was Jadrien, who asked urgently, "Can you come down here, like right now?"

"Sure," said Jabet. "What's going on?"

"It's Logan. Something happened," Jadrien answered. "He's unconscious or collapsed or something."

As she ran to her car, Jabet told Jadrien to call 911.

"I didn't stop to tell Matt," Jabet said. "I was already halfway to the car when we hung up, and I just got in and peeled out."

Matt saw her leave and knew instantly "it was something at the dock, or maybe a breaker wasn't working at a campsite or some other thing that happens all the time," he said later. But when Jabet left in such a hurry without telling them why, Matt hurriedly followed her in his truck.

At the marina, Jabet could see people on the marina's fuel dock. "A couple of them were crouched over Logan," she said.  

Matt arrived a few seconds later and ran toward the fuel dock too. "Is he breathing?" he yelled as he ran.

"Barely," someone replied. 

But then Logan stopped breathing. 

"It seemed like nobody knew what to do," Matt said. "I started yelling at Logan to get up."

By then seven people were there, gathered around Logan. Some of them had had CPR training. But it was Matt, who hadn't had the training, who knelt beside Logan and, while still screaming Logan's name, began chest compressions.

"I did my best to do CPR, which I didn't know how to do," Matt said. "I guess it was instinct."

Meanwhile, Jabet continued to go back and forth between the fuel dock and the marina's entrance, watching for the ambulance and for Logan's parents, Corey and Hope Hillhouse. Neither of them had answered their cell phones when she called, so she had texted them: "Call me now." She was also watching for Pontiac first responders Joe and Shirley Bator, whom she had called directly.

The off-duty paramedic

Off-duty paramedic Chelan Phillips and her boyfriend, Jeff Burress, also an emergency services professional, were in the camper they keep parked at a site off W Highway at Pontiac. She was scheduled to return to her job Tuesday morning after being off for a week. While on vacation, she had turned off her phone's alert system that broadcasts EMS calls to the ambulance districts she works for – South Howell and Ozark County. "When I'm on vacation, I don't even wear a watch," she said. 

But that Monday evening, Chelan – known as Shaye to her friends – turned the alert app back on. "I was just being nosy, wanting to know where my ambulances were," she said.

Almost immediately, she and Jeff heard that a 911 call had come in from Pontiac Cove Marina, where a 17-year-old male was having a seizure.  

While seizures are scary for nearly everyone else, EMS professionals don't get very excited about responding to them, Shaye said. "Usually by the time we get there, the person is awake and feeling okay and doesn't want to be transported," she said. "So I wasn't going to go."

But Jeff said, "You probably should go. The ambulance is at least 20 minutes away. And it's a kid . . ."

"So I got my flipflops and grabbed my car keys and soda," she said. "I wasn't rushing because I was thinking, 'I'm going to get there, and the kid will be fine.'"

She wasn't hurrying, but it only took her a couple of minutes to drive to the marina. When she arrived, Jabet was in the roadway, anxiously watching and then waving for her to hurry. "We need help!" Jabet yelled.  

The two women know each other because Jabet has managed her family's marina for nearly 20 years, and Shaye and Jeff have been regular Pontiac lake-goers and campers for much of that time. "I knew Jabet wasn't going to freak out for no reason," Shaye said. "As soon as I saw her face, I knew things weren't good."

Shaye is in her 15th year of being an EMS professional, first as an emergency medical technician and, since 2015, as a paramedic. It's work she committed to 16 years ago, when her pregnant daughter went into premature labor and was flown to Springfield by air ambulance. The medic on that flight "was calling to give me updates and keeping me calm while I was driving up there," she said. "When it was over, I said, 'I want to be that person for someone else.'" She worked as an airborne medic with Air Evac for four and a half years before switching to the ground-based ambulance crews. She now works full-time for South Howell Ambulance District and also works as needed, when available, for the Ozark County Ambulance District. 

When Shaye saw Jabet's strickened face, she immediately did "what we are specifically trained not to do," she said. "I got out of the car and started running. I ran all the way."

EMS professionals are trained "from day one: Do not run," Shaye said last week. "We're told that 'walking purposefully' gives our brains time to organize our thoughts and prepare. Running changes that.'"

There was no time for organizing thoughts or preparing for what lay ahead. Shaye followed Jabet to the fuel dock, where Matt knelt beside Logan on the 4-foot-wide walkway, "screaming his name and doing compressions and giving him breaths, mouth-to-mouth," Shaye said.

She dropped to her knees and joined Matt beside Logan's inert body, put her mouth over Logan's and "gave him two big rescue breaths," she said, adding, "We're also trained not to do that" without using a protective mask. 

Later, she would share the thought that flashed through her mind when she first saw Logan. "He was gray-purple-blue, and I thought, 'There is zero chance this kid will be alive when this is over,'" she said. "He looked like people do when they're dead and nothing you do can help them. But he's 17, and his mother's on the way, and I have to try." 

She took over the chest compressions "while Matt was still trying to give Logan breaths and wiping vomit that was coming out of his nose and mouth," she said. 

 Matt was stunned to see how hard Shaye's compressions were. "I thought she was going to break him in half," he said. "She was very calm, very confident in her ability. She's a hero."

When it was over, he would tell Shaye, "You're a badass."

The Pontiac first responders

When they got the urgent call from Jabet, retirees Joe and Shirley Bator were "sitting on the porch, enjoying the evening" at their Pontiac home about 3 miles from the marina, Joe said. By the time the 911 dispatcher's page for the Pontiac-Price Place Volunteer Fire Department's first responders came in 30 seconds later, they were already on their way to Joe's Ford Expedition, where he keeps fire and medical gear, including one of the department's three automatic external defibrillators.  

Joe and Shirley are in their mid-70s and have been married 55 years. They moved to Pontiac in 2013, when Joe retired after serving 30 years with a fire department outside Collinsville, Illinois. He was assistant chief for several years in Illinois, and now he's chief of PPPVFD. Shirley, an active volunteer with the department, joins him on first responder and fire calls and records what happens. The department's average response time is five minutes, and Joe said he's done more CPR here than he did in all his 30 years of EMS in Illinois. He knows that surviving cardiac arrest "has a lot to do with how quickly people around the person start CPR," he said. 

That meant they had mixed reactions to the dispatcher's next radio message that said, "CPR in progress." It meant this was a serious call, but it also meant someone had responded.

"You wouldn't believe how many times we get to someone having a heart attack, and the family is standing around yelling at each other and not doing anything to help the person," he said.

At the marina, Joe relieved Matt beside Logan's head. The fuel dock's walkway was so narrow, "we couldn't get on both sides of him, but we did the best we could," he said.

Joe set up the AED and a medical valve bag (MVB) and mask. While Shaye continued chest compressions, Joe attached the AED's shocking pads to Logan's chest and then used the MVB to force oxygen into Logan's lungs. 

The AED checks for a "shockable" heart rhythm, and if it's found, the device says, "Shock advised." Then rescuers push a button to deliver the shock, hoping it will jolt the heart back into regular rhythm. If that happens, CPR stops, and EMS responders continue to stabilize the patient and prepare them for transport.  

If the shock doesn't return the heart to regular rhythm, rescuers resume CPR, stopping every two minutes and taking their hands off while the AED does another rhythm check. If it detects a shockable rhythm, another shock is delivered. 

Accepted guidelines require EMS personnel to continue CPR until the heart restarts or a medical doctor declares the person dead. It's understandable that CPR also stops "when you're physically worn out and can no longer do it," Joe said.

In an ideal situation, multiple EMS personnel are on hand, and they can switch off doing compressions after a few minutes. Joe has had a few cases where he's been the only one administering CPR and has had to continue the strenuous procedure for as long as 45 minutes while waiting for an ambulance.

It's been harder for the 74-year-old to do compressions since he had shoulder-replacement surgery in February; he expects to have his other shoulder joint replaced in a few months. Shirley, his 75-year-old wife and co-responder, has had two knee replacements and can't get down on the floor to help with the physical part of the rescue, but she does the important work of keeping a record of what's happening and timing the procedures that are done. 

That night on the marina, Shaye estimates that she performed chest compressions on Logan for 20 to 22 minutes after she took over from Matt. After Joe came with the AED, they administered three shocks that produced no results. In between each shock, they continued CPR. 

Matt reported each unsuccessful shock to Jabet, who waited in front of the marina for the ambulance, and for Logan's parents. "We were going to have to tell the parents that their teenage boy is deceased," Matt said. "What were we going to say?"

And then, after the fourth shock, when Shaye said Logan had a pulse, Matt ran back to Jabet and shouted, "He's alive."

A minute later, Hope and Corey Hillhouse arrived.

The family

The Hillhouses live off Highway 5 south, between the state line and W Highway, the road that leads to Pontiac. They had missed Jabet's phone call but got her text a few minutes later. When they called her back, she told them, "Logan has collapsed. We've called the ambulance."

Hope and Corey left immediately, very concerned but thinking everything would be okay, Hope said. Then they arrived at the marina, and Jabet told them, "It's not good, but he's breathing now."

Hope remembers thinking, "He's breathing now? You mean, he wasn't breathing before?"

They arrived shortly before two Ozark County Ambulances pulled in. The shocked parents watched as Logan was carried off the marina on a gurney and loaded into one of the vehicles. His face was covered by an oxygen mask, and he wasn't conscious, Hope said.

For a couple of years now, the ambulance district has been able to have two crews on duty 24/7, said district board chairman Doug Hawkins. One is an advanced life support (ALS) unit with a paramedic and EMT, and the other is a basic life support (BLS) ambulance with two EMTs. Before that change, only one unit was immediately available to serve the whole county, although a second crew could be called in when needed. It's common now, but not mandatory, for both on-duty units to respond to a cardiac arrest when both are available and when the call isn't in a very remote location that would make it harder for the second unit to respond to another call.

That night, paramedic Jim Glynn and EMT Courtney Holt arrived at the marina in the ALS unit, and EMTs Clayton Shelden and Elijah Burrow followed in the BLS unit. When Logan was loaded into the ALS unit for transport to Baxter Healthcare in Mountain Home, Shaye joined the crew for the trip. 

Hope wanted to go with them, but Shaye told her there wasn't room. She told Hope later that the real reason she hadn't wanted Hope to ride with them was because Shaye was going to intubate Logan in route to help him breathe, and she didn't want Hope to see that happen to her son. 

The hospitals

At the hospital in Mountain Home, Logan stopped breathing again but was stabilized; he remained unconscious. The decision was made to send him by Air Evac to Mercy Hospital in Springfield, and he landed there around midnight. Corey and Hope, driving from Mountain Home, arrived around 2 a.m. 

Amid all the things that were said and done during Logan's ordeal, some acts of kindness stand out in Hope's memory. She appreciates now the way Shaye Phillips talked with them in Pontiac and at Baxter. "She was trying to keep us calm," Hope said.

And she remembers the reassurance a doctor gave them in the ICU in Springfield when he told Hope and Corey, "I was lying there 10 years ago." The doctor said he had been saved after suffering cardiac arrest while swimming a decade earlier.

Despite the efforts of the medical professionals in Springfield, by 6 a.m., "They started talking about ECMO," Hope said, referring to extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, a life-support measure that takes over heart and lung functions. For that, the doctor told them, Logan would need to be transported by air ambulance to Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. 

"They started getting him ready for that, and for some reason – we still don't know why or when – his lung collapsed, causing air pockets in his throat and chest," Hope said. That setback meant a chest tube had to be inserted. But finally, when Logan was stable again, the flight crew arrived – and delivered another one of those little acts of kindness.

"A lady on the flight crew walked in, and the first thing she did was give me a hug," Hope said. "She said, 'I'm going to take care of your son. I'll call you when we land.'" The flight medic also told Hope and Corey that, because Logan had a chest tube, the helicopter would have to fly below a certain altitude. "But we'll take care of that. Don't worry," the medic said.

(Before they left Kansas City several days later, the medic found Logan and his family in the hospital and asked to take a picture with him, Hope said.) 

Logan arrived at Children's Mercy in Kansas City about noon that Tuesday, July 2. Corey and Hope followed in their car, bringing along their daughter, Lauren, and Logan's girlfriend, Abbie Johnson.

Waking up

  In Kansas City, Logan was put on ECMO – a scary thing, said Hope, "meaning he has two tubes coming out of his neck." 

Doctors hoped the ECMO would allow Logan's heart and lungs to heal and strengthen. And in three days, that's what happened. But it happened after a wide range of tests turned up no cause for his heart's poor functioning. During that difficult time, Hope and Corey were told that, if Logan's heart and lungs didn't recover within a couple of weeks of ECMO, "you're looking at a heart transplant," Hope said. 

Those words brought chilling memories to Logan's large extended family. In 2005, Matt Abraham, the 9-year-old son of Hope's sister Melinda Abraham and her husband, John, died after a tragic accident. Many parts of Logan's situation mirrored Matt's, including the air ambulance transport to Springfield and the dozens of anxious family members and friends who filled hospital hallways and waiting rooms, praying that he would recover. When all hope was gone, Matt's heartbroken parents had agreed to let his organs be donated – and as a result, five organ recipients were given a new chance at life. Matt's heart went to a 14-year-old Pennsylvania girl that Melinda and John later met. 

And now, Logan's relatives, including Matt's family, were flocking to Kansas City to be with him, and doctors were saying that Logan might need a heart transplant – when he'd been a strong, healthy teenager with no health problems just a few days earlier? It was excruciating to consider the possibility.  

Thankfully, Logan's heart and lungs did grow stronger, and on July 5, he was taken off ECMO. After that, he endured some hard, challenging days and more painful ordeals as he slowly regained his strength. On Wednesday evening, July 10, Logan was discharged; he and his family left the hospital immediately, arriving home about 11 p.m.

Doctors still don't know what caused Logan's heart to stop, and until he returns to Kansas City for more tests in September, he must wear a "life vest" attached to a small computer that constantly monitors his heart. The vest's electronics, which are monitored long-distance by medical personnel in Logan's doctors' Kansas City office, will deliver a shock if it's ever needed. So far, there have been no concerns.  

Logan 

Logan's rescuers say they'll never forget what they all went through at the marina, but Logan himself remembers nothing about that night – or most of the week afterward. He doesn't remember falling onto the narrow fuel dock walkway, the resuscitation efforts that restarted his heart, the ambulance ride and helicopter flights, the invasive hospital procedures or the rest of his hospital stay, until about his last two days in Kansas City. Then he remembers his grandparents being there – June and Loren Hillhouse (his grandmother Kay Rackley Young was there earlier) plus "a full room" of other relatives and friends. 

He's also lost his memory about the days leading up to July 1. "I can't remember anything, up to about a week before," he said.

While he can't remember them, Logan is grateful to his rescuers. "I can't thank them enough for what they did," he said.

The community

As Logan's story has spread through the community, efforts have been started to see that more residents are trained in CPR. Ozark County Ambulance District and South Howell Ambulance District are partnering to present an informational CPR and Stop the Bleed class from 5 to 9 p.m. tonight, July 24, at Pontiac-Price Place VFD fire station No. 1 on W Highway, next to the Pontiac post office. The class is free and open to everyone. 

While class participants won't become certified in CPR, they will receive the same information and skills needed to perform the lifesaving procedure. In lieu of administering the certification test, instructors will use that time to teach basic first aid as well. Anyone interested in taking the class should contact Jabet Wade at 417-679-3676. 

Jabet and Matt, and their Pontiac Cove Marina employees will be there, along with PPPVFD firefighters and responders. And so will Logan Hillhouse and his parents.

  Meanwhile, Shaye is looking into grants that could help buy more AEDs for the area, including in Pontiac, possibly at the marina. Gainesville city clerk Lisa Goodnight has said she's also looking into grants that might purchase another AED for Gainesville, where one device is installed at The Center, on Highway 5 north at the Gainesville city limits, and another is inside the Ozark County Courthouse, near the west entrance.

Jabet, serving her third term as a member of the Gainesville school board, confirmed that both the elementary and high school/ junior high buildings have an AED.

One challenge is that AEDs cost anywhere from $450 for a refurbished device up to $2,500 for a new unit. It's more than many Ozark County volunteer fire departments can afford, because they're funded solely by membership dues, community fundraisers and donations, and occasional grants. Budgets are tight. 

And AEDs can't be simply installed somewhere and forgotten. The batteries have to be checked and serviced regularly and replaced as needed. And, each time the AED is used, the charging pads have to be replaced. 

Joe Bator said PPPVFD has three AEDs, including one at the firehouse, one carried by another first responder and the one he carries in his vehicle. But all of them are pretty old. In fact, he said, when the hospital asked for the report from the AED used to resuscitate Logan, he couldn't provide it because the device can't produce that kind of information. 

The Times plans an additional story about local AEDs in the future as efforts continue here to acquire more of them. 

Afterthoughts

Some of those who responded to Logan after he fell can't help but see God's hand in the results. Jabet Wade looks back on Logan's rescue and believes it was "divine intervention" that caused everything to happen exactly as it did. "If one thing had gone differently," she said, there might have been a different outcome. 

Paramedic Shaye Phillips says she's "not a religious person," but she also sees the divine in how the steps played out. "So many things happened that should not have happened," she said, referring to her own actions that went against all her training – but may have made a difference in keeping Logan alive. 

Logan himself said he knows "God had to be there" with the people who stepped up to help him. "He definitely had to be doing something to put everyone there like that," he said.

Matt Wade calls Logan "a walking miracle" and believes his recovery is "110 percent divine. There's no way it's all coincidental," he said. 

Matt, the one without CPR training who didn't hesitate to perform CPR the best he could, also came away from the experience with a new appreciation for the volunteers and professionals who choose to serve in emergency situations. "People don't know. You don't have a clue how traumatic this kind of thing is until you've lived through it," he said. "I literally don't think I could live through another one. But first responders have to do it all the time. All the time."