Waseca coach encourages CPR training after health scare

WASECA — After collapsing at Waseca’s football game Friday, Brad Wendland is back at home recovering thanks to a quick emergency response on the field.

The longtime Waseca football coach, 48, returned home Tuesday after the installation of an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, or ICD, in his chest. The device monitors his heartbeat and delivers electric shocks if needed to restore heart rhythm.

Speaking over the phone Wednesday, Wendland said he’s feeling good and he hopes his story demonstrates the importance of emergency preparedness.

“I’m here because some amazing people acted really quickly,” he said. “If there’s one thing that comes out of this, it’s I’m going to say yes to everyone who talks to me because they’re going to hear how everyone should get CPR training and have an AED (automated external defibrillator) on site.”

Wendland, coach and teacher in Waseca since 2006, knelt down near the end of Friday’s game against St. Peter after feeling lightheaded. He then collapsed and blacked out.

The scary development called athletic trainers from both sidelines into action, along with a nurse from the stands and other helpful bystanders. They all helped steer away a tragedy.

Troy Hoehn, an athletic trainer with Mayo Clinic Health System who works with the Waseca football team, got to the unresponsive coach and helped maintain his airway. St. Peter’s athletic trainer, Leah Rutz, also of Mayo Clinic Health System, ran across the field to aid in the life-saving efforts.

The athletic trainer duo plus the nurse provided chest compressions and a jolt from the AED to revive Wendland. It was truly a team effort made successful by fast action and good coordination, Hoehn said.

“It makes you feel good and makes you proud of the effort for sure,” he said. “And really it makes me feel glad Leah and I and everyone else providing care was there to do that.”

In his 23 years as an athletic trainer, he hadn’t encountered a situation like Wendland’s. It’s a rare occurrence for someone to collapse as he did, Hoehn said.

Surviving cardiac arrest with resuscitation needed outside a hospital is fairly rare, too. About 88.6% of people in the U.S. who had out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in 2015 died, according to a study co-authored by Dr. Roger White, a Mayo Clinic anesthesiologist, in 2017.

Once resuscitated, Wendland was not only conscious but aware of everything around him.

He remembers seeing someone he knew as soon as he opened his eyes. He remembers trying to get up but being told he shouldn’t. He remembers talking to the guy in the ambulance on his way to the hospital.

When he learned he’d need to stay in the hospital for days at least, at first he wasn’t sure why. He felt all right again.

“I felt fine, but I had no appreciation for what everyone else saw,” he said.

The details came to him from his family, friends and community members in the stands. One of the hard parts about what happened, Wendland said, is knowing how scared his family, his team, their parents and everyone else in attendance that night must’ve felt when he went down.

“Obviously it was unintentional, but I gave a scare to people who are really important to me,” he said.

At the hospital, he received a cardiac MRI, two EKGs, an echocardiogram and an angiogram. The litany of tests was about finding out what happened and why.

There are still questions to be answered, but he said his doctors have a best guess at this point. He has one condition causing leakage in the mitral valve of his heart, which isn’t all that uncommon. Another condition related to the mitral valve is believed to be what caused the collapse, Wendland said.

His vitals remained strong enough during his hospital stay to go home a day early once he received the ICD. He did so after receiving hundreds of texts and well wishes in the hospital from Waseca, the surrounding area, across the state and even outside Minnesota.

“It’s been humbling and it’s such a difficult thing because, on one hand, here I am in the hospital for cardiac arrest at 48 years old, but on the other hand, I can’t help but feel incredibly blessed that all these people took the time to reach out,” he said. “I’m grateful for all of it and feel all their prayers.”

Hoehn, who’s gotten to know Wendland over the last two years as the athletic trainer for Waseca football, said it felt awesome when he heard the coach was out of the hospital. Wendland expressed great appreciation for Hoehn, Rutz, the nurse and everyone else involved in his care.

He also made a point to thank St. Peter’s team and their coach, Brian Odland, for the way they conducted themselves throughout the game and the harrowing situation toward the end. Wendland described Odland, a friend of his, as “everything that’s right about high school sports.”

Wendland looks forward to teaching psychology and U.S. history and coaching again when he recovers enough to resume. First, though, he said it’s most important for him right now to be there for his wife, Kim, and his three sons — one a senior on the football team and the two oldest in college.

And he hopes more people consider becoming CPR certified and that places ensure they have AEDs and action plans so they’re as ready when emergency situations arise.

“I wasn’t here, man,” he said. “I was gone, and I feel like I’m on bonus time. I dang well better do some good with it.”