'Everything went black' after collapse: Round Rock nurse saves pickleball player's life

Quick action and AED helped save a man who went into cardiac arrest

Jonathan Goetz hands Tyler Hobson a pickleball paddle and starts lobbing a plastic ball over the net at the Brushy Creek Community Center.

For Hobson, a nurse manager in the labor and delivery department at St. David's Round Rock Medical Center, the feel of the paddle is new. Goetz plays several times a week, sometimes during his daily neighborhood walk.

The two now share a bond. On Feb. 5, 2025, Goetz played three games of pickleball before collapsing on the gym floor. His vision narrowed until "everything went black," he said.

He woke to people standing over him, unaware of what had happened.

Goetz, 62, experienced a sudden cardiac arrest, and was brought back to life by Hobson's quick-thinking and CPR.

Hobson was picking up her 10-year-old twins from basketball practice. "Usually, I just wait in the car," she said, but on this night she was early and decided to go into the community center to watch the end of practice.

On her way off the court with her sons in tow, she saw a group of people crowded around Goetz. She handed her sons her keys and purse and took charge.

She assessed that Goetz wasn't breathing and did not have a pulse. "His face was gray," she said, "And there was no response."

Hobson remembers thinking, "Oh my gosh, this is for real."

While Hobson is trained to do CPR and has done it three times as part of her job, she had never done it "out in the wild," as medical professionals call it.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is successful about 10% of the time when done outside of a hospital and about 21% when in a hospital, according to the American Red Cross. The chances of survival decrease by 10% for every minute CPR is delayed.

It's not that CPR doesn't work, said Dr. Robert Neely, a cardiothoracic surgeon who treated Goetz at St. David's Round Rock. CPR moves the oxygen already in the blood throughout the body, protecting the brain and other organs. People die even with CPR because of what was happening in their body.

In the eight minutes between the time Hobson reached Goetz and the ambulance team took over, Hobson called out for someone to get an automated external defibrillator. In the community center, one was on a gym wall, marked with a red heart sign and the words "AED."

Hobson started chest compressions while connecting with a 911 operator who had already been called by a bystander.

When the AED arrived, she turned it on, attached the pads and followed the voice commands from the machine to deliver a shock.

Hobson is 5 feet tall; Goetz is more than 6 feet. The adrenaline coursing through her body made it possible for her to deliver the 2-inch to 2½-inch deep chest compressions to keep the heart delivering oxygenated blood throughout the body.

"It seemed like forever for the ambulance to get there," she said, "But I knew I had to keep going."

She had done two rounds of compressions and then delivered an AED shock followed by another round of compressions. She knew her next step would be to try CPR breaths to bring more oxygen to his blood. Just as she was trying to figure out how to open up his clenched jaw and place a mouth shield, Goetz's eyes opened.

He thought he had just woken up from a nap, and he was mad about it. "I was not the nicest person," he said.

Emergency medical technicians arrived, as did Goetz's wife, Lori. He argued about needing to go to the hospital and didn't want to get onto the ambulance's stretcher. That's when Hobson leaned on Lori Goetz to talk some sense into him.

"I was really concerned he was going to refuse and have her take him if he even went," Hobson said.

He never felt bad, never had chest pain or other typical heart symptoms.

Returning to life

Once at St. David's Round Rock, doctors determined Goetz needed a quadruple bypass surgery to work around the blockages in his arteries around the heart.

Hobson checked on Goetz in his intensive care unit room a few days after the cardiac arrest. "I was looking pretty rough," Goetz said.

Hobson worried Goetz might be mad that she had broken or bruised some of his ribs during CPR, but the Goetz family gave her only hugs and tears. The broken ribs were not a concern.

For Hobson, there is still some trauma. Her brain continues to go back to that gym. She gets uncomfortable when people mention her saving someone's life. At the time, when everyone clapped for her after Goetz opened his eyes, that's when she started crying.

One of her twins asked her, "Wow, is that what you do at the hospital?" Her answer was, "Well, no," she said, but "they were pretty proud."

Goetz and Hobson have kept in touch. "It's part of the healing process on both ends," she said.

Goetz has changed his life. He no longer smokes. He's trying to quit chewing tobacco. He eats more nutritious food and has lost weight.

He also walks 5 miles every day, rides a mountain bike and walked a half marathon recently. He gets regular checkups and is up-to-date with all of his medical screenings.

He lives with gratitude about every beat of his heart.

"Every single day is a blessing," he said.

Of Hobson: "That is a rock star."

How to do CPR

The basic steps are:

• Check consciousness by shaking them.

• Call 911 or ask someone else to call if you are not alone.

• Ask someone to locate an AED if you are in a public space.

• If unresponsive, start compressions. Move them onto the floor. Lace your fingers together and push down in the center of the sternum in line with the nipples with the heel of your palm 2 to 2½ inches down. Push hard using your shoulder strength with elbows locked. You want to push about 120 beats per minute, or to the song "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees. You do not need to do breaths.

• Keep doing compressions until help arrives. The 911 operator will guide you when to use the AED if you have one. Rotate the person doing compressions every two minutes if multiple people are available.

Do not worry about breaking ribs or hurting the person, said Kristen Hullum, the trauma prevention coordinator at St. David's Round Rock Medical Center. Any CPR injury can be fixed, she said, but what can't be fixed is no one doing CPR and the person dying.

CPR classes, which are often paired with basic first aid, are taught at outlets around Central Texas, including through the American Red Cross, CPR Resources, CPR Training Austin and Austin-Travis County EMS.

You also can take them online through the American Red Cross, redcross.org/take-a-class.