Man fell unconscious on a hiking trail. Luckily, an off-duty doctor jumped into surgery — but for the first time
Watching his oxygen level go down, the doctor feared a cardiac arrest, so he decided to perform the surgery.
A relaxing ride through the Cuyuna Lakes trails turned into a shocking medical emergency when a Minnesota doctor found an unconscious man, surrounded by paramedics desperately trying to intubate him. The biker, CBS reported, had fallen off his bike, and his oxygen levels were dropping. Dr. Jesse Coenen, an emergency physician at the Hayward Area Memorial Hospital in Wisconsin, saw his condition and realized he had to perform a cricothyrotomy on-site, feeding a tube through an incision in his throat.
Coenen confessed that initially, he had no intention to step into the rescue, but then a police officer asked him and his friends to bring an oxygen tank on-site. When they returned, Van Guilder, the unconscious man, was lying face up with paramedics trying to help him breathe. "After handing over the oxygen tank, I did not initially introduce myself as a physician. But after listening to the conversation and realizing that they were discussing medication dosing in preparation for intubation, that's how I realized that my skill set could be helpful. That's when I joined the group," he said. Watching his oxygen level go down, the doctor feared a cardiac arrest, so he decided to go ahead with the surgery. Coenen, who wasn't obviously well-equipped for the surgical procedure, turned to paramedics on-site, who gave him their gloves and a scalpel. "This is a procedure that I have studied over and over and that I review on a regular basis and that I've performed on mannequins as well as animal models, but never on a live person," he said. Luckily, the surgery was a success, and within moments, Van's oxygen level started to improve.
Once the patient was stable, paramedics carried him to the parking lot, where an air ambulance was waiting to take him to the hospital. Van, a corrections officer, was riding through a rocky trail when he suddenly lost control of his bike. As he veered downhill toward the ravine, the man jumped out of his vehicle, landing hard on his chest and stomach. As Van tried to gather strength, he said he experienced strange visual disturbances. "This was like the brightest white light that you could ever see. Not to, like, preach religion or anything to anybody, but when you stand at the gates of heaven or whatever, and you see the bright light, that's pretty much what it looked like," he recalled. Van, who had been recovering well at home, said he realized the severity of the incident much later. "You know, the severity of what could have happened had that doctor not been there," he added.
The story is not just a rare miracle, but it's also a reminder of how fragile life can be during medical emergencies that occur far from hospitals. Now imagine the circumstance if Coenen hadn't gone ahead with the emergency surgery. Van, who was continuously losing oxygen, could have died if he had suffered a heart attack. In fact, every year, the EMS in the United States cares for more than 350,000 individuals experiencing a non-traumatic out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Unfortunately, the majority of them (90%), according to the American Red Cross, die. Luckily, this didn't happen to Van Guilder, and the doctor's timely intervention saved his life.
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