She learned CPR in a Deerfield school gym class. Now she is credited with saving her father’s life.

She learned CPR in a Deerfield school gym class. Now she is credited with saving her father’s life

It started like any other day.

Mark Sagan, a Deerfield resident, said he knows it sounds like a cliché, but after a week spent hiking in Arizona, he woke up in his home, much like any other day.

On Jan. 15, he’d just finished cleaning his paintbrushes after painting one of the bedrooms when something came over him.

“Everyone was downstairs, so I walked downstairs and said, ‘You better call somebody, I don’t feel well,’” Sagan said. “And then I passed out.”

When Sagan regained consciousness three days later, the first face he saw was Dr. Jonathan Rosenberg, an interventional cardiologist at NorthShore University HealthSystem. He’d suffered a heart attack due to 100% blockage in his left anterior descending artery, also known as a “widowmaker.” Before he was resuscitated, his heart stopped beating for 30 minutes.

“We get called pretty frequently to treat heart attacks,” Rosenberg said. “This was a relatively dramatic situation in the sense that, when I was called from the emergency department, they told me they had a 55-year-old male who collapsed at home and got CPR for about half an hour before they were able to get his heart beating again. And when his heart was beating again, they found out that he was having a heart attack.”

Sagan said he has no memory of what happened between losing consciousness and waking up three days later. “I was gone,” he said.

“I just remember (Dr. Rosenberg) waking me up and telling me how lucky I was,” Sagan said. “The rest of the story, you have to go to my wife and daughters. They’re the ones that are the story. I just happen to be the guy that died.”

Cora and Kalie Sagan, a sophomore and senior at the University of Minnesota and Mark’s daughters, said they agree with their father — the day did start like any other.

“I think I grocery shopped,” Kalie Sagan said. “We were just watching TV, and we were all sitting on the couch together. It was a pretty normal night until everything happened around 7 or 8 p.m.”

Cora Sagan said her father came downstairs, told them — his daughters and wife — to call 911, and collapsed. Seconds later, she started performing CPR.

“I could tell he needed CPR,” Cora Sagan said. “My mom said his face was turning purple, which is a sign that, to me, meant that he wasn’t getting any oxygen. When someone’s not breathing, I know you should do chest compressions and start giving CPR. That was the first thing that came to my head.”

Cora said she’d learned how to perform CPR in a sophomore gym class at Deerfield High School. She wanted to pursue a career in health care, so she made a note to never forget the CPR procedure, she said.

According to Rosenberg, that lesson in CPR saved her father’s life.

“When CPR is ongoing for 30 minutes or more, that is a very poor prognostic indicator for a patient’s survival,” Rosenberg said. “For him, he’s on the young side, and he got very effective, prompt CPR, so that certainly was in his favor.”

Almost two months later, Sagan said he’s on the path to full recovery.

A self-proclaimed jokester, he said he’s tried to share a laugh or two with his family about the heart attack, but he’s usually the only one laughing.

“I can’t remember what (joke) I said, but (Cora) wasn’t totally over it,” Sagan said. “It would have been so bad if I didn’t pull through because she would have been the one that saw my face with my eyes open as she was doing CPR. She would have blamed herself. So I thanked her, and I made a joke. No one was ready yet.”

Jokes aside, Sagan said he’s living a healthier lifestyle. But rather than gaining a new outlook on life, he said the heart attack taught him the truth about luck.

“I know I’m lucky, and I know I’m very fortunate to be here,” Sagan said. “Just the fact that (Cora) learned (CPR), remembered it and was able to do it in a situation like that is unbelievable.”

Since the heart attack, Cora and Kalie said they make an effort to call their parents at least once a day.

This experience, they said, taught them the importance of learning CPR in school.

“High schools should continue to teach CPR because it’s a beneficial thing to know, even if it’s in the back of your head,” Cora Sagan said.

Rosenberg agreed.

“I think it’s vitally important for students to learn CPR because prompt and effective CPR is the best way to save someone’s life who has a cardiac arrest,” Rosenberg said. “You need to be able to act quickly and understand the situation. For people to learn it early on, like in school, is really the best way to have people be able to participate and be able to save someone’s life who is in this type of situation.”

Rosenberg said the Sagans’ story shows how anyone can make a difference and save a life.

“The reason we do our jobs is to help patients and, especially, those who are in such critical and life-threatening scenarios like what (Mark) was in,” Rosenberg said. “Anyone who learns CPR, even with no medical background, can help save a family member, friend, or a stranger’s life just by being present, aware, attentive and performing prompt and effective CPR.”