Pete Catlow had been waiting for this visit for weeks. After all, it’s not every day you get a chance to return to the place where you almost died and meet the person who saved your life.
On March 25, almost nine weeks to the hour that the Wisconsin man suffered a heart attack at the Community Thrift Store in Aurora, he got to hug Heidi Scaletta, the Geneva woman who performed CPR on him as his face turned an ugly shade of blue.
“I just kept thinking, let me bring him back at least enough so he can say goodbye,” Scaletta told Catlow and his loved ones as they gathered again in the resale shop on Indian Trail and she recalled her thoughts during those critical moments in the early afternoon of Jan. 14.
“But here you are, standing here in front of me … this is just wonderful,” she said.
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Catlow wasn’t the only who came back to the thrift store to thank Scaletta, who had relied on the training she’d received as a certified nurse’s aide at an assisted living facility in St. Charles. Also on hand was Catlow’s wife Ann, as well as his sister and brother-in-law Nita and Kent Hayward of Aurora, who the couple were visiting when the heart attack occurred.
“Heidi, you saved my brother,” said Nita as she wrapped her arms around Scaletta and pulled the 50-year-old mother of two in closely. “I can’t thank you enough for what you did for him.”
After the introductions and embraces, Scaletta, who is also a long-time Geneva schools crossing guard, added details to those extraordinary moments that began when 78-year-old Catlow, standing in line to purchase a $7 coat so he’d have something warm to wear on his trip back to Fontaine, Wisconsin, suffered an arrhythmia and hit his head on a display table as he fell to the floor.
Scaletta recalled being in the dressing room when she heard the cry for help, and how she hesitated momentarily, as she’d never before had to perform first aid on a real person.
She described how she heard the crack of bone as she gave the stranger two hard hits to his chest, and how relieved she was to see his complexion begin to normalize.
But even as paramedics were arriving, his color darkened again. And despite what Fire Capt. Jason Demas described as a call “that went seamless,” doctors warned Ann Catlow a few days later her husband was likely not going to make it.
That same afternoon, however, he surprised everyone by raising his arm …. And from then on, his recovery has been steady and impressive.
“I still forget things,” admitted Catlow, who will continue in rehab for at least a year. “But I’m here … and I’m doing well.”
He and his family, who also met quick-acting store personnel that helped get Aurora Fire Station 3 responders to the store within minutes, were introduced to another good Samaritan. And this one was totally unexpected.
As Catlow and family were talking to Scaletta, a woman, who had just entered the thrift store with her granddaughter and fiance, stopped to watch and listen to their group’s conversation. And as recognition set in, emotion replaced the surprise on her face.
“I know what’s going on here,” she finally said.
It turned out Teresa Tiarks, too, had been in the store when Catlow hit the floor. And like Scaletta, this former Aurora home healthcare provider, jumped in to help, keeping the elderly man’s head tilted back enough to give him the best chance of getting oxygen to his brain, while assuring him over and over that “you’re not alone … we’re here for you.”
But until she just happened to walk into that store last weekend, Tiarks said she had no idea what had happened to the man whose head rested in her lap as CPR was performed on him.
“I was so shaken for such a long time …. I thought he had probably died,” Tiarks said. “I can’t believe I’m seeing him here.”
Tiarks says she recognized Ann Catlow’s face before anyone else’s because “I remember the fear on her face that day.”
“She thought she was losing her husband,” Tiarks said. “Now, to see him smiling like this …. To see her smiling. It brings closure … the best kind.”
As she was introduced to the growing crowd that gathered in the front of the store, Tiarks, still trying to process the surprise situation, continued to utter one phrase more than any other. It was a sentiment shared by all.
“This,” she said, “just made my day.”