Dennis O’Donnell remembers setting the volleyball during one of his weekly games at the Chilson Recreation Center on May 11, but he doesn’t remember collapsing, his heart stopping. He doesn’t remember the heroics that followed or how center staff and fellow player Dr. Tom Kasenberg saved his life.
“At some point, I dropped like a rock,” O’Donnell said two weeks later, back at the recreation center in Loveland, surrounded by many of the people who brought him back from the brink.
After O’Donnell collapsed on the court, reality went into slow motion for staffers Ashlee Taylor, Bridie Smock, Laura Homiak and Dana Redford, even though they were rushing at top speed to set up an automatic external defibrillator.
Each had a special task to perform, skills they had practiced but never before used in a real life-or-death emergency.
