Back from the dead at Santa Rosa tennis club

Two days after his heart stopped and he dropped down onto the tennis court, Richard Allen is thanking cool-headed thinking and a handy defibrillator for bringing him back to life.

Allen was playing tennis around noon Saturday at La Cantera Racquet and Swim Club in Santa Rosa when he was seized by a heart attack that left him without a pulse for several minutes.

Allen credits the quick response of club manager Erin Morales with saving his life after she grabbed a portable defibrillator in her office and zapped him back from the brink.

“How many people would have that kind of composure to come out with a defibrillator when they see someone dying on the tennis court?” he said Monday. “Basically, according to my doctor, I was dead briefly.”

Allen, 65, plays tennis about four times a week and was in the midst of a mixed doubles game. As he reached down for a ball, he felt a little short of breath and dizzy. Then nothing.

Witnesses said he crumpled to the ground.

Dr. Richard Strunin, an anesthesiologist who also was playing tennis, began administering CPR, while others ran to the clubhouse. But the chest compressions were not enough.

When someone alerted Morales to call 911, she grabbed the defibrillator next to her desk and ran to the rescue.

She had never used the machine, but, she said, “it walks you right through the steps,” with a recorded voice and illustration showing where to place the paddle on the unconscious person to deliver a powerful electric jolt and restart the heart.

She was able to stay calm and “in the moment.”

The first time she pressed the button, nothing happened. On the second try “I could see the response,” with the electricity jolting Allen’s body.

“A moment later he said, ‘Why am I on the ground? What happened?’” Morales recalled.

The brush with death was as close as it gets. “He was gone. Then he was so completely back,” she said.

Defibrillators, which cost between $1,200 and $2,000, are an increasing presence in gyms, workplaces and public venues.

Typically without the devices, only a small fraction of people who have heart attacks with no trained personnel on hand will survive. But if defibrillators are used within three minutes, there is a 74 percent survival rate, according to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Allen, a real estate appraiser and retired Forestville Junior High School teacher, said, “She saved my life. I would be dead if not for her.”

Remarkably, Morales, 58, has been dealing with her own health issues, reinforcing the idea of life’s fragility. She is undergoing some final rounds of chemotherapy for breast cancer.

“Fortunately, I’ve had a good outcome,” she said of the treatment.

She visited Allen in the hospital Sunday morning and got big hugs from him and his wife, Patricia.

“Afterwards, I was thinking it was a classic widow-maker event,” Morales said Monday. “I’m so glad we made that decision years ago to have that equipment and be prepared. I didn’t need to be helpless. I could take action.”

Allen would learn that two blocked arteries were the cause of his heart attack. But with stents implanted at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital over the weekend, he is feeling “pretty good.”

On Monday, he was driving around doing errands with no restrictions from his cardiologist other than to take it easy and avoid exercise for the next couple of weeks.

But he also is planning on taking his wife’s advice to cut stress and quit his appraiser job.

“I’m back from the dead. It looks like I lived to tell the tale,” he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Clark Mason at 707-521-5214 or clark.mason@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter@clarkmas.