Super saver

Roger King died on the zoysia. Thrice.

A day later he had a procedure in the hospital and, a day after that, he was home.

Across circumstances frantic, timing fortuitous, preparation deliberate and action exacting, the life-saving efforts to revive King seemed, in the moment, both chaotic and miraculous.

And though both descriptions may be true, what actually occurred on this near-fatal day was much more calculated and far more inspired.

Grassy gathering

The loudspeakers were situated, tech tested and mic live across Tyler Truman’s two-plus acres of test plots. Sun City Palm Desert residents, nearly 100 in attendance, gathered their collective carts in organized shade amid the atypically warm late October afternoon.

Truman, the longtime director of agronomy and grounds at Sun City and a past president of the Hi-Lo Desert Chapter of the GCSAA, prepared to present sanguine findings on his sample work with zoysiagrass, a hybrid strain that could someday prove a grassing revelation for the Coachella Valley’s costly and labor-intensive annual autumn overseed.

Calling the cache of residents from carts to plots, the 55-and-over group (along with one dog) collectively strolled over to the well-marked and specifically signed 7x7 testing turfs as Truman placed mic toward mouth and started his spiel.

For the next 15 minutes, Truman spoke to a captive audience about his methodology in testing, discussed the dozens of different zoysia varieties sampled and explained the massive potential water savings in transitioning to a year-round turfgrass for his grounds’ 36 holes — with nary a hint of the esoteric nor a suggestion of superiority.

Rather, per his personality, the superintendent spoke to residents with a neighbor’s tenor, a tone light and malleable, educated and understanding. Think: Seeing one’s fourth-grade teacher outside of school on a Saturday afternoon.

The residents soon graduated from captive to curious and questions ensued — good questions. Ranging from nascent to elaborate, Truman addressed an organized cache of queries, evidencing both his own acumen and the resident’s genuine passion for their golf and grounds.

Providing an explanation of “Sprig or Seed” to discussion of divots to varied questions of budget, course rating, timeline and beyond, Truman moved from one inquiry to another to another, his intellect impressive and manner unchanged.

And then, everything changed.

Man down

A distinct murmur in the gathering. One of those moments in life where casual ascends to surreal; a gray moment, opaque and strange. Time standing with stillness.

Said stillness, like a vehicle with the ability to go from 0 to 100 mph in one second, is then broken. Real time catches up with alarming suddenness, breaks through the confusing cloud and people regain their bearings.

“I was, like everybody else, watching Tyler give the presentation,” says Joe Johnson, director of golf at Sun City’s Mountain Vista Golf Club. “And we had a lot of our admin people there, because the zoysia conversation is a big topic for the community. We got into the Q&A session, and then I heard something to the effect of, ‘Man down!’”

Echoes Truman in reflection: “One minute, I’m talking about the zoysia, and then I hear a woman say something like, ‘This guy just dropped!’”

The guy was Roger King.

Big, bald, bearded, barrel-chested and seemingly more than mere years advanced from Sun City’s 55-year-old minimum threshold, King lay on the zoysia, motionless.

A circle formed around him. From a vantage macabre, the zoysia plot signs appeared as headstones. Most residents — some surely out of respect for the fallen man before them and others out of mere horror — moved away.

And yet, amid the primeval of Fight or Flight, others did not.

Though his situation was undoubtedly dire, King was and is a very, very fortunate man.

“At that moment, I went right towards him, and the people who performed CPR also went directly to Roger,” Truman says “Once I knew the CPR had started, I verified that somebody had called 911.”

While Truman instantly and instinctively pivoted from zoysia MC to triage chief, King’s good fortune found fellow residents Wayne Gilstrap, an Army veteran and, soon, Tracy Hobday, who worked with CAL FIRE for nearly three decades before retiring as a battalion chief, providing rapid Fight response.

“Wayne was on him within seconds,” Johnson recalls. “When Roger hit the ground, right away there was no pulse, no breathing. It’s my understanding that Roger flatlined three times. I mean, he was in and out. You could tell by Wayne’s voice whether Roger was responsive or not.”

“I was listening to the grass presentation just like everybody else, and then a lady shouted something, and I saw Roger on the ground,” Gilstrap remembers. “So, I immediately went to him. And when I noticed no pulse and didn’t see a rise and fall of the chest, I just started compressions.”

Initially monitoring the situation and staff response, Hobday assessed that a gentleman assisting Gilstrap required respite.

“I could see Tyler taking action and then, a couple minutes in, I just felt like the gentleman who was doing compressions needed a break,” Hobday says. “So I offered to take over compressions, and we had 911 on the phone, which was put to my ear and the operator was pacing me on the compression rate.”

Over the course of the next 15 minutes, when medics arrived, Truman took charge of emergency and logistical response.

“I went to my team, the office admin people that were here, and told them we needed the AED [Automated External Defibrillator],” Truman remembers. “And then Joe stepped in and let me know they were able to get ahold of one of the marshals, and he was on his way with the device.”

Such availability and proximity of the defibrillator amply aided King’s good fortune; a year ago, Sun City’s’ Emergency Preparedness Committee recommended that every marshal carry an AED.

“I called my marshal and told him to drop whatever he was doing and get the AED over,” Johnson says. “And, luckily, he was close, right over on the first tee of our Santa Rosa Course, so he was able to get over in just a few minutes.”

While a vocal Gilstrap (“C’mon, Roger! You can do it, buddy!”) performed mouth-to-mouth and a tireless Hobday ensued with compressions over the 15-minute span, Truman operated with concise purpose.

“He moved with a sense of urgency,” Johnson says of Truman. “But he was also calm; not panicked. He just knew what to do.”

Evidencing focus under the weight of time, Truman made the smart and strategic call to have a staff member go to the community’s main gate to meet the medics. With the test plot and emergency situation located in a non-addressed location, Truman’s quick thinking saved critical minutes.

“When responding to an emergency, it’s crucial to have a specific place where responders can go,” Truman says. “When calling in, responders might just go to the clubhouse address. Having staff that was able to meet responders right at our [front gate] guard shack and bring them down this way was so important.”

With the medics en route, the AED was activated on multiple occasions as King lay lifeless.

“We shocked him, and there was no conversion,” Hobday says. “So, we continued with compressions and a woman, Patty Chandler, was down there on his wrist taking pulse and letting me know if my compressions were working until the medics arrived.”

Said arrival presented its own challenges. Aided by Sun City staff, the fire truck was led along a winding, downhill cart path,before being guided under a bridge that accesses the community entryway.

All the while, Gilstrap’s ongoing chorus of rally and support (“You can do it, Roger!”) narrated a scene that seemed ever dire.

“If they come to a little bit and they have somebody familiar or someone saying words of encouragement, maybe it’ll make you fight a little harder,” Gilstrap says. “That’s the way I look at it. Little different, but same kind of thing in the military: somebody gets shot and you need to talk to your buddy, keep ’em going.”

With the fire truck on scene and Hobday’s vigorous compressions ensuing, medics assessed the severity of the situation.

“What freaked me out more than anything was once the fire department got there — even though they were so calm — was that they were doing some extra work,” Johnson remembers with pause. “Roger wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t quite with it. And so I saw the paramedic trying to find a vein and get an IV going, but his veins had collapsed. So, the paramedic then drilled a hole in either Roger’s tibia or fibula with this little hand drill, and just really lean in to drill a hole into Roger’s leg bone so he could give him epinephrine right into the bone marrow.”

More than 25 minutes into the life-saving efforts, an ambulance arrived, guided in a manner mirroring that of the fire truck. With King showing faint signs of life after flatlining three times, it took four strong men to arch him onto a tarp-stretcher before carrying him to the transport.

Gilstrap stood and helped ensure a clear path for the ambulance as the man he’d just help save was placed inside. Adrenaline pumping, the Army veteran spat on the zoysia in an undoubted expression of victory.

Noah built the boat before it rained

Sun City is a unicorn. Located on the east edges of the Valley’s epicenter, the community boasts nearly 5,000 homes and 200 employees to match Truman’s 500 acres of turfgrass. Provided the property’s senior population, it’s said that an emergency vehicle enters the massive community five times a day. (With dark humor, residents refer to it as the “Sun City taxi.”)

Such data cumulatively considered, the community takes pride in preparation.

“People know that we’re a little bit isolated here, so in the event of an earthquake or something, we’d need to take care of ourselves for a little while, because there’s a chance that first responders might not be able to come in for a day or two,” Truman says. “There’s a pride taken here in being self-sufficient. People want to know what to be able to do if put in a situation to try and save their spouse or their friends.”

In lieu of accepting individual praise, the respective life savers are fast to acknowledge the cumulative effort in bringing King back to life.

“I was just a piece of the puzzle,” Hobday says. “There are a lot of pieces that need to come together to have this kind of outcome.”

While King’s resuscitation was fulcrumed by the incredibly good fortunes of having Gilstrap and Hobday at his side that day, the fact that he’s able to tell the tale didn’t occur by mere happenstance.

“There’s an old saying in the fire department: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” Hobday says. “You apply that and you’ll typically be prepared for most anything.”

“I’m just thankful that I had the training, and that I was out there at the right time to help him out,” Gilstrap echoes.

All Sun City managers are trained to administer CPR and use the AED, along with stop-the-bleed, and all course marshals have received concurrent defibrillator training. Saving King’s life has since elicited further readiness.

“Yes, we acted quickly, but, because of this situation, we’ve now decided that if there are any presentations made on the golf course or anything like that, an AED will be on-site,” Truman says. “We have so many locations out here — our softball field, our putting course, fitness centers — that have AEDs already on-site. But based on what happened here, we’ve gone out and purchased three more AEDs.”

Balancing the situation’s delicate dance of preparation and personality, Truman sees a bit of both.

“Being trained in CPR and AED, and then also having emergency training, that can come into it,” he says. “But I think some of it does come down to personality. There are some people, regardless of training, who will freeze.”

Persona aside, reflecting on his professional past finds Truman wondering to what degree properties are truly prepared for such situations.

“Being at other places, I think there are some courses which might have an AED. But do they know how to use it?” Truman wonders. “I think that at all courses and country clubs, staffs should be trained on all this. My guess is that a lot of places aren’t. And it’s not just about having something in place for an emergency — it’s also about practicing the response.”

“I think anybody that works at a golf course in any capacity should have some sort of CPR and AED training, and then to have a least a few defibrillators on hand so you can do what you can do until the fire department or medics arrive,” Johnson says.

Roger King died on the zoysia.

Thrice.

With good luck, fine fortune and careful preparation on his side, he lives to see the light of a desert peak-season anew.

“This happened on a Wednesday,” Johnson says. “At the hospital the next day, they put a pacemaker in him. And then he came home on Friday. That Sunday, he sent me an email saying, ‘Hey, Joe. It’s Roger King. I died Wednesday and came back. Can you please get me the names of the people who brought me back to life? I’d like to reach out and acknowledge them.’”

Of such acknowledgments, Hobday says: “Talking to Roger was special, but getting a card from his wife was also very special. I think what sometimes we forget is that, while he’s here and survived and that’s great — it’s also about all the people he survived for.”

“Roger called and told me he wanted to take me to dinner or buy me a drink or something,” Gilstrap says, his tenor ethereal. “And I just told him not to worry about it, that I’d see him on Tuesday at our ‘Menz Putterz’ group.”