That Valparaiso resident Troy Goehl was able to attend the April 24 Valparaiso City Council meeting and see two of the city’s police officers receive their department’s Life Saving Award is a testament to the training and quick thinking of the officers and his 15-year-old son, Bruce.
Goehl was watching TV with his son the evening of March 2 when he had a heart attack.
Bruce Goehl said he heard his father make a noise, then slump over and begin turning blue.
“I could tell he wasn’t right, so my first thought was 911,” Bruce said.
The dispatcher told him to pull his father out of the chair and do chest compressions, which Bruce said he knew from learning CPR with his mother at the YMCA where she works.
“It was very scary,” Bruce said, and he doesn’t know how he managed to keep his head.
“I kept going,” he explained.
Officer Michelle Kodicek arrived first on the scene and began administering compressions and an electric shock, Police Chief Michael Brickner said during the award ceremony.
Soon after, Officer Jason Hamilton arrived to help, and they delivered another shock via the paddles before the EMTs took over and then took Troy Goehl to the hospital.
The officers then took the children to meet their mother at the hospital and stayed with them until things were good.
This isn’t the first time either officer received the Life Saving Award, which Brickner called one of the department’s most prestigious awards.
Kodicek received it in 2000 for her response to an 8-year-old hit by a truck and a few years ago for her response to a suicide, and Hamilton received it in 2003 after carrying 11 people out of a burning apartment building that had no smoke detectors.
“This one, I think, hit home for both if us,” Kodicek said, because she and Hamilton both have children, and this became a family situation.
Troy Goehl was glad to see the officers be recognized.
“I really appreciate everything the officers did — and my son (did),” he said.
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James D. Wolf Jr. is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.