A Utah woman resuscitated a Montana man who fainted, stopped breathing and had no pulse during a funeral in Cody on Monday.
“It was quite a deal,” said Dana Cranfill, whose family had organized the service for their late daughter Meghan, 38. She credited Meghan’s friend, Kassie Skeen Robbins of Vernal, Utah, for administering life-saving measures.
“She revived him,” Cranfill said. “He would have died if there hadn’t been any CPR.”
From his home in Billings on Tuesday night, John Bennion gave credit to Robbins along with her friend Tera Presenkowski of Lovell, who were sitting in the pew in front of him and his wife at Christ Episcopal Church. Friends of Meghan’s during their Cody High School years, the two women had spoken at the service 10 or so minutes before Bennion fainted.
“They jumped into action,” he recalled. “I appreciate [their] skill and quick thinking. It was kind of fortuitous.”
Also fortuitous was Robbins’ background.
“I had never given CPR in a real scenario, just on lots of dummies,” she said, a white water raft guide for 20 years and wilderness first responders. “It was the first time I’d used my training on someone who was dead and revived.
“It was a lot, emotionally,” she added. “I’m grateful I had the training. I didn’t need to think twice.”
The incident occurred toward the end of the funeral, when the congregation had stood to say a prayer.
“It was a lovely service,” Bennion said. He started feeling dizzy and should have laid down, “but I’m too shy,” he said. “To lie down is not a good thing to do in the middle of a funeral.
“I told my wife that I had to sit down, and the next thing I knew I was on the floor. I’d passed out, lost consciousness.”
When his wife called for help, Robbins said she jumped into action. It came naturally, an automatic response – “There was no option to wait.”
She said her father Riley Skeen saw Bennion going limp and suggested they move the lifeless man from the pew to the aisle. Others assisted.
After finding no pulse or breath, Robbins started administering CPR, while Presenkowski began rescue breathing.
“I came to right away,” Bennion said.
Robbins agreed, saying “he revived pretty quickly, which was a miracle, really.” She recalled that he wanted to sit up and the team wouldn’t let him, instead keeping him still and checking him for alertness and a pulse until the ambulance arrived.
At the hospital, Bennion had an EKG and X-ray, which indicated no heart damage or injury and no broken ribs, he said. “Everything was fine,” he added, but his blood pressure was really low and his heart rate slow.
His chest is sore and probably will be for a couple of weeks, which Bennion finds a small cost of revival, saying “That’s the price of admission.”
The tendency toward dizzy spells runs in his family. His father was quite athletic, a strong bicyclist who would occasionally faint for no apparent cause, Bennion said. At age 78, his father had his last spell while alone, cooking breakfast and died. Bennion is 72.
“This event was a knock on my door to say I should see if something else needs to be done,” he said. “I plan to see a cardiologist right away.”
Bennion, an oral surgeon, is in the process of retiring, which he said will give him “plenty of time to sit around and relax and nurse my chest. I like being around for the ending.”
For her part, Robbins said, “I’m grateful it all worked out.”
She said credit is due not just to her but also to her father, Presenkowski and many whose names she regrets not knowing. “Oddly,” she added, she felt the presence of the high school friend she’d come to honor.
“With Meghan there was never a dull moment,” Robbins said. “She was going out with a bang. It was funny, in a quirky sort of way – just like Meghan.”
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