Steve Johnson throws the first pitch at a New Hampshire Fisher Cats baseball game recently.
(Sarah Lenau / New Hampshire Fisher Cats Photo)
By Curt Peterson, Standard Correspondent
BARNARD – When Barnard firefighter and site work contractor Steve Johnson, 39, woke up early Monday morning, May 1, he had no idea he was about to undergo a lifechanging ordeal – one that he almost didn’t survive.
Johnson felt out-of-sorts and had upper abdominal pains that felt like indigestion. He left home for a job site in Woodstock, but at the top of “the ledges” on Route 12 he suddenly had severe tunnel vision. He pulled off the road and sat for 20 minutes before he felt well enough to drive on.
Once in Woodstock, Johnson again experienced blurred vision. He called his wife Meg, who happened to be in Woodstock too, and asked her to pick him up and take him home. She wanted to take him to the hospital instead.
“But I was stubborn. I thought if I could lie down and rest for a couple of hours I’d be fine,” he said.
After an hour in bed he felt worse. Meg convinced him go to the hospital, but he had trouble getting dressed. She called their friend and neighbor, John Hall, who arrived at their Mt. Hunger Road home in minutes.
“He took one look at me and called 9-1-1, Barnard First Responders and White River Ambulance,” Johnson said. “They were there in 12 minutes.”
The EMTs gave Johnson an Electrocardiogram and told him he was having a heart attack. Hall and Meg followed the ambulance on its way to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon.
“Ten minutes into the ride I crashed,” he remembers. “Later the EMTs told me I had no pulse – they turned on the flashing lights, started giving me CPR and stepped up the pace.”
Once he was in the ER doctors took Johnson into a room and continued CPR.
“Meg saw them take me past her and my eyes were open,” he said. “She thought, ‘Oh, good, he’s going to be OK,’ but at that point I hadn’t had a pulse for 15 minutes.”
Meg and Hall went into the room with Johnson – she fainted when she saw them working on her husband.
The doctors were unable to induce a pulse. At the 50-minute mark they told Meg they could only continue for five more minutes – then they would have to call time-of-death.
“I was in a void,” he said, “but I heard her yell into my face, ‘You can’t leave – you have two young daughters who need you!’ The doctors told me they saw my pulse start up just at that moment.”
Without a pulse, he had been technically dead for 45 minutes. Doctors told Meg he would be lucky to live till Thursday. If he did live, they said, he might be in a permanent coma. Or, he might have some degree of brain damage.
They asked her if she and Steve had discussed what his wishes were if something like this were to happen.
“She told them we had discussed it,” he said. “She said if I was in a coma or vegetative state she knew what I would want her to do – I’m a pull-the-plug kind of guy.”
The cardiology team put Johnson into a coma that lasted seven days. They installed two stents in his left main artery. When he had been in the hospital for two days he developed a totally unrelated major blood clot in one of his legs that had to be removed to save the leg. He lost a lot of muscle and had to have skin grafts. He has to wear a brace to compensate for foot-drop until his leg nerves recover, which could be quite a while.
His recovery was nothing short of “miraculous,” according to DHMC doctors. He went home from the hospital just 24 days after he was five short minutes from a “time-ofdeath” call. “And, other than a few tiny blips I’ve noticed, I remember every detail and my mind seems to be good as new,” he said.
Johnson, whose nickname among some is “Goof,” is a popular member of the Barnard community, known for his ready smile and wit. He and his nine siblings grew up in town.
His brother Tim has been a selectman and Barnard’s Tree Warden for several years. Steve is vice-chairman of the Barnard Planning Commission and is known generally as a “go-to” man when someone needs help. He’s very active in the Barnard Volunteer Fire Department and was a key player in planning the new firehouse and in negotiations with contractors and the Select Board.
Amanda Soule, a friend of Johnson’s founded a “GoFundMe” account to raise $50,000 to help Steve and his family with uncovered medical expenses and lost income during his recuperation. Many people responded, and, as of Aug. 14, the effort has raised $39,610 from 175 donors.
Johnson told the Standard that he did not have health insurance coverage when his heart attack struck him down – but a hospital counselor arranged immediate Medicaid coverage.
“Most of my bills are covered,” he said, “And you can be sure we have coverage now.”
During his illness Johnson’s brothers Tim, Mike, Mark and Ronnie pitched in to keep his business functioning, and Tim’s wife Michelle kept his bookkeeping up to date. Meg was at the hospital 21 of the 24 days Johnson was there.
“You know, all my life I’ve tried to help other people,” he said. “I never expected to need help myself. But my family, my friends and the community have really supported me during this experience. Without their help I would be in a real mess right now.”
Currently he is limited to visiting job sites and keeping track of various projects, such as the firehouse. In three weeks, Johnson said, his physical therapy will be completed and he believes the doctors will let him go back to work. He plans to continue being active on the Planning Commission and on the Fire Department, but to reduce stress in his life.
DMHC chose him and his story to promote their cardiology department, arranging for Johnson to throw the ceremonial first pitch at a New Hampshire Fisher Cats baseball game, where they showed a video of him telling his harrowing but uplifting tale. (https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=hOvkmw7OWGE) “I should have known better – my father has had six heart attacks, the first when he was 41. And I’ve been a first responder in people’s homes when they’ve had heart issues,” he said. “If I had listened to Meg and gone to the hospital when she first suggested it, I would have been in and out in a couple of days, not 24 days plus months of rehabilitation.”
This article first appeared in the August 17, 2017 edition of the Vermont Standard.