Gilbert patrols now carry a life-saving device

Jun. 26—Kevin Mohatt remembers the day that he died.

It was Valentine's Day 2022 when his heart stopped beating as he sat behind the wheel at Warner and Ray roads.

"I had a widowmaker heart attack in my car," the 61-year-old Gilbert man said. "I had my foot on the brakes initially and slump forward and pushed the car into park.

"I lost my life — died."

Mohatt's car sat through three to four light changes as other vehicles drove around him. Finally, a woman pulled up behind to see what the matter was and saw that Mohatt's skin was blue.

She flagged passing motorists for help and they pulled Mohatt out of his car to perform life-saving CPR. While the woman proceeded to do 150 chest compressions, a man called 911. Two officers arrived on scene and took turns and between the two they pressed on the center of his chest a total of 1,050 times, Mohatt said.

"The amount of compressions they did on me was just obscene," he said. "They punched me in the heart 1,200 times. I'm surprised my heart didn't break."

Four months after Mohatt died and came back to life, Gilbert Police announced that it has equipped every patrol car with a fully automated external defibrillator.

The portable medical device sends electrical shocks to the heart to restore a normal heartbeat unlike CPR, which helps restore blood flow to vital organs like the brain and heart, provided it's done correctly.

Each of the 92 units costs $1,736 and was funded out of the budget after the department was unsuccessful in obtaining grant monies, according to police spokesman Levi Leyba.

"These AEDs are fully automated in dual languages allowing for officers to be guided on-screen for CPR feedback on the depth and rate of compression needed when in use," he said.

Leyba said Griffith Blue Heart helped Gilbert Police develop its AED program.

"Brandon Griffith shared his story with Gilbert PD and we were able to recognize the need to provide a rapid response to cardiac emergencies," Leyba said. "In addition to our training with hands-on CPR, having AEDs in our patrol vehicles could make a difference with the chance of survival on calls for service."

Griffith did not respond to requests for comment.

Griffith, who is also a Pinal County Sheriff's deputy, started the nonprofit in 2014 to train and equip law enforcement agencies with AEDs. The organization is near and dear to Griffith as he dropped dead of cardiac arrest at age 26. Saved by his wife, he has a defibrillator implanted in his chest.

"I have administered aid where I needed to provide chest compression while on duty," Leyba said. "I personally would not be able to determine whether or not AEDs would be better due to each call for service varying in degree of need.

"Due to these recently being placed in our patrol vehicles, we do not have calls for service to show a comparison with how much better having the units are for the officers and the community."

A number of studies points to a higher survival rate when police officers — often first to arrive to a medical emergency — have defibrillators. And, according to research, deploying a defibrillator within three to five minutes of collapse can produce survival rates as high as 50 — 70%.

Packing AEDs in patrol cars is a growing trend in light of the fact that CPR alone may provide someone in sudden cardiac arrest a 6% chance of survival, but a defibrillator can improve those odds dramatically, according to an industry magazine for U.S. municipalities.

Chandler Police Department in 2020 received $10,500 from the Arizona 100 Club to purchase AEDs while other law enforcement agencies in the state — such as Sedona, Flagstaff, Marana and Oro Valley — also have the devices.

Every year, about 805,000 people in the country have a heart attack — 605,000 are a first heart attack and the remainder comprises previous heart attack victims, according to the American Heart Association.

In a single year, 436,000 Americans die from a cardiac arrest with over 350,000 of those occurring outside of the hospital, the nonprofit reported.

That Gilbert now has AEDs is something Mohatt has championed. He's written letters to the chief, council and mayor asking why officers don't have the machines.

"I was in Home Depot and they had an AED machine," he said. "I asked myself, 'why can Home Depot have it and not a police officer?' It didn't make sense.

"I'm a vast proponent for them to have AED devices in their vehicles. They didn't have one for me. They did the old fashion compression on me."

When paramedics arrived, they drilled an IV into the bone marrow of his left arm as there were no viable veins because he had died, Mohatt said.

"And they gave me two shocks," he said. "It didn't work."

The paramedic in the ambulance gave Mohatt another jolt from an AED, which resuscitated him for a brief moment — he sat up and then immediately laid back down and flat-lined.

He was rushed to the hospital, where a catheter — a thin, flexible metal tube — was inserted into the coronary artery and pulled out a blood clot.

According to the American Heart Association, only 12% of people survive a widowmaker heart attack or a myocardial infarction outside the hospital. This lethal attack occurs when the biggest artery in the heart, the left anterior descending artery, which sends oxygen-rich blood to the heart's left ventricle is 100% clogged. It mostly affects men, hence its informal name.

"The second they pulled the clot out and hit me with electricity, I came back to life," Mohatt said. "I remember exactly the specific moment it happened because I was in dark, black-pitch, black terror. I felt pushed off the bottom of the ocean and just got a breath."

He said that he was temporarily deaf and blind because there had been no blood going to his retinas, ears or to the rest of his body for that matter for 15 minutes.

Two to three people held him down as he screamed for his wife, Connie. He was intubated and put into a medically-induced coma.

"I was alive and doing very well for what they knew had happened to me," Mohatt said. "This was Monday 1:20 that afternoon. I'm in ICU until Thursday and Thursday night they moved me to a regular room Friday."

On Saturday, Mohatt walked out of the hospital and went home.

"They all thought I was dead," he said, adding that he made it a point to later visit with the drivers who stopped and rendered aid and the first responders. "The look on their faces was 'you were dead.'"

Mohatt said he is doubtful a deliberator would have worked on his heart because the major artery was totally blocked but he still backs police having the program.

According to experts, an AED should only be used when there's a sudden cardiac arrest caused by an electrical problem with the heart. However, a heart attack can cause a change in the heart's electrical activity that leads to sudden cardiac arrest, in which a defibrillator would be used.

Initially the heart attack posed a mystery for Mohatt, who said he has no family history of heart disease, has a heart rate of 55 and has a blood pressure reading of 95/65.

"I'm in great shape," said the musician, who plays the guitar and writes songs. "I don't drink, I don't smoke. I retired from taekwondo. I played ice hockey all my life."

He'd regularly get in at least a solid hour of stick time on the ice. On the day of his heart attack, he was playing hockey at AZ Ice near Santan Village Parkway and Ray Road.

"About an hour into it, I started to feel like I was 800 pounds out there skating," Mohatt recalled. "I literally could hardly move."

Mohatt, who was vaccinated last October and caught COVID in January, thought his sluggishness was due to the virus.

"I thought COVID was my problem," he said, remembering having to struggle to remove his skates and safety gear.

He was on the road heading east toward Higley and Warner, about a mile from his home at Cooley Station when his heart gave out.

His doctor after examining the clot told him that it was not the type of clot seen in people with normal heart disease and attributed it to the COVID vaccine, according to Mohatt. He said he got the Moderna vaccine because working in real estate, he is out in public in contact with people and his wife at the time had cancer.

Today, his heart is back to "functioning really well" but he suffered 30% damage to the edge of the muscular organ due to the lack of oxygen, he said. He had to wear a defibrillator vest for three months and he's on medication to ensure his heart doesn't get too tired.

He's currently undergoing physical therapy from hip replacement surgery because his left hip somehow got damaged when he was pulled out of his car, he said.

"Anyways it's a miracle," Mohatt said. "I watched myself dead. I described with accuracy to each of my lifesavers before they tell me their portions of my death scene."

Mohatt has a favorite saying — "God is real, miracles happen every day and heaven is indescribable. I'm going back someday."

For now, he said, "I'm ready to buy a hockey stick and intend to be back playing ice hockey."