Padecky: Casa coach's 'guardian angel' steps forward again

The doorbell rang, the door opened and there they stood facing each other Monday night, Carl Triola looking for the first time at the man who helped save him, Don Lambertz. They stared at each other. It would happen another three or four times in the next 90 minutes. They just stared. Words seemed so pointless, unsatisfactory. Thanks for saving my life? Now that's lame. Glad I could help? Even more lame.

"I couldn't believe he was standing there in front of me, alive," Lambertz said of the Casa Grande High School cross country coach.

First impressions can be indelible impressions. Lambertz was so certain Triola wasn't going to live after his heart stopped on that Annadel State Park trail 17 days ago, he looked for Carl's obituary the next few days in The Press Democrat. Along with Sharon Root, a retired cardiac nurse, pounding on Triola's chest, Lambertz gave Triola mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until the paramedics came.

"They kept looking at me like I was dead," Triola said of Lambertz and his friend, Darrell Willhite, who was on the cell that day to 911. The air was thick with surreal. Hesitancy, in the beginning, punctuated every sentence. Carl and his wife Victoria sat across from Lambertz and Willhite, all four of them trying to get their minds around it all.

Lambertz, from Santa Rosa, was the reluctant savior.

"I told him I definitely didn't want to do it," Lambertz, 44, said of blowing air into Carl's mouth. Yes, he admitted, one reason was the mess: blood, mucus, foam, vomit, chipped teeth; no one jumps through hoops getting to that. But there was another reason.

"I have been through this before," said Lambertz, a technician for Agilent Technologies, "and it didn't turn out well."

Twenty years ago, Lambertz said, he was a staff sergeant in the Air Force. He was in a South American country, setting up electronic surveillance equipment to monitor a drug cartel when a training exercise went south in a hurry. There was an accident. Two members of his crew died instantly. Two others were hanging on. Lambertz performed mouth-to-mouth on both of them. Both died. That moment has never left him.

"For a few seconds there I was having flashbacks," Lambertz said. "I didn't want the stress of having somebody's life in my hands."

No, he told the Triolas, this was the last thing we wanted to do. But Lambertz looked around and about eight people, he guessed, were gathered around him and Triola. Willhite was on the cell. No one else came forth.

Oh, well, he told the Triolas, here I go.

"The first time I blew air into Carl's mouth," Lambertz said, "I forgot to pinch his nose and blood came flying out of his nose. Somebody behind me said, 'You forgot to pinch his nose.' I almost yelled, 'If you think you can do a better job, go right ahead.' "

The Triolas sat, all ears, mesmerized. Victoria wasn't there, Carl was unconscious. A couple of times Lambertz felt fatigued from the constant exhale-inhale; Willhite pushed him to continue. When the paramedics took over, Lambertz said he turned his head to the side, opened his mouth and lost it.

Leaving the trail that day Lambertz told Willhite, "That dude better live because I didn't want to do all that for nothing."

The dude lived but Lambertz stayed away. He does not have the outgoing nature of a game-show host. But the longer he stayed away as the Mystery Man -- no one knew his identity -- the more suspicion he created. People might think you are running from the law, friends told Lambertz. Go forth.

He did.

When Victoria told Lambertz he was their guardian angel, Lambertz wisecracked, "A guardian angel doesn't drink tequila."

When the Triolas asked to take pictures of Willhite and Lambertz, and when Willhite and Lambertz did the same of the Triolas, Lambertz wisecracked, "I'll take your picture but I'm not kissing you again."

"You got farther with Carl than you did on your last four dates," Willhite joked about Lambertz, a single parent.

A few wisecracks, a few more calm and easy moments and the four people settled into the rhythm of a comfortable conversation. Lambertz told them he has a 14-year daughter, Jenna, who runs cross country for Santa Rosa High, and so of course they would be seeing each other again. Lambertz told Carl that he probably wouldn't have been out on the trail that day because, the day before, on a run, he had seen a coyote.

"I'll go out and maybe see something else interesting," Lambertz thought.

Victoria asked permission to hug Lambertz. Sure, he said.

Carl couldn't help but be impressed that Lambertz wasn't taking ownership of the situation and chirping like a hero.

"It was like he was downplaying the event," Carl said. "He may not think of himself as a hero but he's a hero to me."

Lambertz, for his part, was a little shocked at how comfortable the Triolas made them feel.

"They seemed like the kind of people I would hang out with," Lambertz said. "They seem a lot like the people I hang out with now."

Carl said things are progressing nicely and he may resume teaching fifth grade at Miwok Elementary School in Petaluma as early as next week. He still gets weak, can't lift his arms above his head until enough scar tissue develops around the recently-inserted defibrillator but, shoot, he isn't complaining.

"I kept thinking he gave me another chance to see my 7-year old son grow up," Triola said, "and for my second child to be born."

Recovery, as it turned out, went both ways.

Ten years ago Lambertz was at a swimming pool in Rohnert Park with his then-wife. She asked Lambertz to get her some cigarettes. He rose from his chair and in doing so, gained enough elevation to see a little girl, he guessed 10, floating motionless, face down in the water. He told the Triolas he jumped in the water, placed her poolside, pounded on her chest until she coughed up the pool water.

On one side are the two survivors: the little girl and Carl. On the other side were the two that didn't make it out of South America.

"It seems like the universe is giving me a second chance, to atone for things in the past," Lambertz said. "Right now I'm thrilled at how things turned out. I feel like a million bucks, being able to do something like I did for a man like that. Right now I'm even. Not ahead and not behind. If I die tomorrow, I totally got my money's worth."

Lambertz said he has had sleep issues for the past 17 years. Since Jan. 13?

"I've slept like a baby," he said.

And all along everyone thought it was Lambertz who was doing all the giving.

You can reach Staff Columnist Bob Padecky at 521-5490 or at bob.padecky@pressdemocrat.com.