‘I’ve got a second chance at life’ Lincoln man saved after bystander gives CPR amid cardiac arrest

A Lincoln man is alive and well after surviving a sudden cardiac arrest earlier this year, thanks in part to the efforts of a bystander who gave him CPR.

77-year-old Carl Bouges said it happened in late February, at the Cappy’s sports bar near 48th and Nebraska Parkway.

He was out to see his favorite band perform, when he felt short of breath and eventually fell out of his chair to the floor and passed out.

While he doesn’t remember it, Bouges said bystanders surrounded him to help, and retired nurse April Barker jumped into action to start doing chest compressions.

“I heard his girlfriend Carol yelling, Carl, Carl! So of course I immediately got up, went right over,” Barker said. “I checked the pulse in his neck, called the carotid, felt no pulse.”

Barker began doing CPR on Bouges until EMTs arrived and took over.

Bouges only remembers waking up to the checkered ceiling of Cappy’s, surrounded by EMTs who had used paddles to jump-start his heart again.

“It was like getting hit with a bolt of lightning, I mean - boom!” Bouges said. “I woke up and that was the third shock, which is something, how many shocks do you get before they give up? I think about that from time to time.”

Bouges spent five days at CHI Health Nebraska Heart, having surgery on his heart and beginning a monthslong recovery program, which he just finished last week.

He said the damage from the CPR itself was “traumatic,” but he’s made a lot of progress healing.

“There’s a saying in the business, ‘if you’re not breaking bones, you’re not doing it right,’” Bouges said. ”It really took a long time to get back to sustainable daily chores and daily life."

Once Barker and Bouges saw each other for the first time since the medical episode, not a lot of words were needed.

“We didn’t actually say anything. We just went up and gave each other a hug. And he said, April, you’re my hero. You’re my angel. I love you. And I replied back, I love you too, Carl,” Barker said.

Now CHI officials like Dr. Melissa Alavarez are using Bouges’ story to show how important it is to know CPR.

“Bystander CPR increases that person’s odds of survival by about two times. And for every minute that that person doesn’t get CPR, their odds of mortality go up by 10%,” Dr. Alavarez said.

It’s a sentiment echoed by Barker.

“If more people are aware of how easy it is, I’m hoping that more people will, you know, get on the bandwagon and say, I want to learn this,” Barker said.