A sudden loss, a second chance

Carl Triola struggles a year later with how quickly he went from a seemingly fit 39-year-old track and cross country coach to nearly dying and having a defibrillator permanently installed in his chest.

A two-inch scar above his heart is a visible reminder of his collapse while jogging Jan. 13 at Santa Rosa's Annadel State Park. So, too, is a calibrating machine in his Hoen Avenue living room that weekly sounds out the word "Interrogate!" -- a reminder that the implanted device needs to be checked.

But beyond the science of sudden cardiac arrest is a more esoteric search for meaning when a single heartbeat separates life from death -- and when one person survives such a sudden attack because they had access to quick medical care and another does not because help was too far away.

That reflective journey is one that both Triola and a Santa Rosa woman have been on during the past year, separate journeys that started on the same winter day in Annadel.

Triola survived. Ellen Nash's husband, Randy, did not.

For Triola, being alive to witness the birth of his son, Tate Theodore, in July held tremendous joy for he and his wife, Victoria. The couple also have an 8-year-old son, Luke.

"It's a pretty amazing thing anyway, but after what we've gone through, it was even more special," said Triola, who teaches fifth grade at Petaluma's Miwok Elementary School and is the track and cross country coach for Casa Grande High School.

"Once again it reaffirmed the value of appreciating everything and enjoying life."

Ellen Nash has been relying on her grown children as well to help her cope with the loss of her husband, a 54-year-old lumber salesman who died from sudden cardiac death and underlying heart disease while mountain biking with friends at Annadel only hours after Triola was whisked away to a hospital.

Nash also is finding meaning through the act of helping others. She and several of her husband's former co-workers at Mead Clark Lumber Co. have raised $2,800 to buy two portable defibrillators for rangers to use at Annadel and adjacent Spring Lake Park.

The gifts, park staffers say, should accomplish Nash's goal of saving lives.

One lesson in what happened to Randy Nash and Carl Triola is that despite Annadel's close proximity to Santa Rosa, it remains a wilderness park, with 27 miles of trails spread across 5,000 acres.

Rangers at Sonoma State Park, the only park in the Silverado Sector, which includes Annadel, Sugarloaf Ridge State Park and Jack London State Park, to have such a device.

Several portable defibrillators are in use on the Sonoma Coast, however, and have been used to revive patients, said Angy Nowicki, supervising ranger for Annadel and two other parks.

"A donation of this type of life saving equipment is invaluable to the California State Park system," Nowicki said.

Ellen Nash and her husband's friends are hoping to present the defibrillators to park staff next Tuesday to coincide with the anniversary of Randy's death. They also are planning a memorial bike ride and dinner at a local restaurant.

Randy Nash's mountain bike still hangs in his garage, along with a bicycle rim adorned with dried roses, a photo of Nash and a yellow sash with the words "remarkable friend and co-worker." More than 600 people attended his memorial service, a testament to the lives he touched.

For Ellen Nash, it's been an up-and-down year coping with the loss. She said she misses the little things, such as how he used to always have a fire going in the fireplace or how he could fix anything around the house that was broken.

She said she has to force herself out of the house some days.

"I've always used humor as a defense mechanism," she said inside the darkened living room of the Rincon Valley home. "But that isn't working. There's nothing funny here."

Randy Nash, who was riding in Annadel's upper reaches when he collapsed, was taking Lipitor for high cholesterol and had complained of chest pains before his death.

Triola had no such warnings. Tests afterward revealed one of the arteries leading to his heart is out of place. Unknown to the track coach, it had been that way since birth and was restricting blood flow to his heart.

That produced an arrhythmia -- an abnormal heart rhythm -- that ultimately led to his heart stopping.

Triola was fortunate that when he collapsed at the Stonehedge entrance to Annadel, it was witnessed by several people, including Don Lambertz, a technician for Agilent Technologies and a former staff sergeant in the Air Force.

Lambertz and a retired cardiac nurse performed CPR on Triola until paramedics arrived and shocked the track coach's heart back to a normal rhythm.

Victoria Triola still remembers the heart-pounding moment when a police officer showed up at the door to say her husband was at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, where he had been put in a medically induced coma as a treatment for his injuries.

"I remember telling him, 'You better not die,' " she recalled, when she first saw her husband at the hospital.

Carl Triola not only survived, he was back at work fairly quickly and six weeks after his heart stopped was back to running again, albeit with a medical bracelet for identification and a nagging worry every time he feels a flutter in his chest.

The couple attended Lambertz's 45th birthday and say he is planning to attend Carl Triola's 40th later this month.

In her Christmas letter to friends and family, Victoria Triola also encouraged people to donate to the American Red Cross or the American Heart Association and to get trained in CPR.

"I can't even imagine what our lives would be like if two strangers hadn't helped give Carl the gift of life," she wrote.

But for all the forward strides over the past several months, Carl Triola has not been able to summon the will to retrace his steps on that fateful day.

He said he wants to try and remember the moments leading up to his collapse, as he recalls nothing of that morning. But he can't bring himself to run up the fire road, and instead heads toward Spring Lake, which usually is more populated.

There are mysteries and meanings yet to be unraveled, if ever they are.

"I would love to say that I saw the light, but I didn't," he said of his near-death experience. "What does that tell me?"

You can reach Staff Writer Derek J. Moore at 521-5336 or derek.moore@pressdemocrat.com.