The Ulle household and the Vance household have been neighbours for about 15 years, so when Brian Ulle broke Joey Vance's ribs, it only brought the two families closer, and earned Brian the Vital Link Award for saving Joey's life.
Joey Vance suffered a heart attack at bedtime on Feb. 8, 2023. Colleen Vance, his wife, was beside him and noticed odd breathing.
She and their adult son, Josh, alternated doing CPR, and reached out to their neighbour, Brian.
"When the phone rang, I didn't recognize the number, and I get lots of spam calls on my phone, so I just hung it up," Brian recalled.
It rang again right away so he answered, knowing that's not how spammers operate. It was Josh calling about his dad.
"He can't breathe," Brian was told.
The off-duty 91原创 Township firefighter told Josh to call for paramedics, which would also get Surrey fire first responders rolling, and then he ran from his Fernridge home about 500 metres to the Vance home 鈥� located just across the Surrey border at 196 Street.
Brian and Josh maintained CPR until paramedics arrived and took over care and Joey was loaded into an ambulance.
"I could see somebody doing chest compressions in the back of the ambulance and realized he went down again," said Colleen. "It turned out that he had died, and I was asked to come in and say goodbye. So I did. My son went in the back of the ambulance and said goodbye, and as we were outside crying, they called his time of death right in front of me."
But the CPR didn't stop, and someone soon called out "we've got a pulse." Paramedics raced him to 91原创 Memorial Hospital.
Brian was at the hospital to support Colleen and Josh, explaining that Joey had had 100 per cent oxygen from the time paramedics arrived, in response to Colleen's questions about whether he might have brain damage.
The first thing Joey remembers was waking up in hospital close to a week after his cardiac arrest. By then, he was starting to have his wits about him again and got to meet the firefighters who performed CPR on him.
"We're talking to the paramedics. It was over 60 minutes of total CPR time, which is like, I won the lottery," Joey said.
BCEHS presents Vital Link awards to honour bystanders who take action at a cardiac arrest emergency. Bystander CPR increases the chance of survival by ensuring blood and oxygen circulate through the body to sustain organs as long as possible.
"Over 60,000 Canadians suffer an out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest each year," said Philip Arkwright, an advanced care paramedic who was part of Joey's emergency care and emcee of the awards ceremony.
"When a sudden cardiac arrest strikes, bystander-initiated CPR and/or the use of AEDs can increase the chance of survival by up to 50 per cent. While it may seem intimidating to do CPR and apply AED, it really is not. Learning CPR is a selfless gift."
Brian, Colleen, and Joey were grateful to get the chance to thank the BCEHS and others who saved Joey. Colleen and Joey also wanted to be there to see their neighbour honoured with the award.
"I'm just a small piece in that puzzle," Brian said upon receiving his award.
He turns out to be a handy guy to have around. It's not the first time he's been able to perform CPR while off duty.
"At Thunderbird [Show Park], I had a gentleman go into cardiac arrest right in front of me, and I had another time. It was really horrible. I had another guy at Bright Nights, our Christmas light display, we had a guy go into cardiac arrest." he noted.
Joey, 53, had a message for the public: Learn CPR, and don't be afraid to break ribs.
"Learn CPR," he reiterated. "Everybody needs to learn CPR, because it obviously saves lives and gives people a chance."
Joey said he'd like people to have a better understanding of how much force is needed to properly perform CPR.
"When you're doing CPR break bones, break bones, break ribs," Joey said.
"I had 11 broken ribs and a broken sternum. When you do it, you have to apply a lot of force, and people don't realize that. I even asked my son afterwards, 'Could you hear my bones breaking?' And he's started laughing, because he said 'I could feel them' and he said, 'that's what told me that I was doing it right.' So if you're giving CPR, push as hard as you can, because if you're not, you're not doing it the right way."
