Saving a life on the eighth hole

Paul Hahn has never performed CPR, and until this month, he had only seen a defibrillator used on television.

But on Aug. 4, Newport Beach Country Club’s head golf pro became a hero when he used a defibrillator to bring a heart-attack victim to life on the eighth hole of the club’s golf course. The man has since recovered.

“The fact that he came back was probably a miracle,” Hahn said.

Although the odds of surviving full cardiac arrest are low, they increase depending on how quickly CPR and a defibrillator are used, Newport Beach Fire EMS manager Cathy Ord said.

“He is the best-case scenario,” Ord said of the survivor, who fire officials would not identify.

It had been a long day, and Hahn was just closing up his office when a club member ran in frantically and told him to call 911. Out on the golf course, someone else was trying to dial 911 on a cellphone but was having a hard time explaining where they were. The confusion delayed rescue workers.

After Hahn got through to a 911 dispatcher, he grabbed the club’s defibrillator from the back room and zoomed out to the eighth hole on a golf cart. He and his co-workers were trained how to use a defibrillator in January, but as he raced to the eighth hole he worried it might not work or that he would forget how to use it.

When they arrived the golfer was turning blue, wasn’t breathing and didn’t have a pulse. Several doctors on the course had already been doing CPR for more than 5 minutes, Hahn said.

“I was basically looking at someone who went to the back nine without us, so to speak,” Hahn said.

Hahn hooked the man up to the machine, it analyzed his status and recommended that the man be shocked. Hahn pressed a button and the shock jolted the man up, he said.

The man started breathing and paramedics arrived a short time later. The heart attack victim, who is a social member at the club and a student of Hahn’s, has since been released from the hospital. He told Hahn the heart attack he suffered is known as a “widow-maker” and hospital staff were surprised he survived. A week after the heart attack, the man came to the club, brought Hahn flowers and the two had lunch together.

“We have a close bond as it is,” Hahn said. “Now it’s even closer.”