By his own admission, John Jeska shouldn’t be here.
“This is the first time this happened,” he said, with a laugh.
John was on an organized snowmobile trip from Lake Vermillion to International Falls. He rode all day, ate dinner, and felt fine.
“A guy came over. He asked me if I was okay. I said yea. I can vaguely remember that. Then I sat down, and then I don’t remember anything. I just keeled over,” he said.
John says he had a stroke. Fortunately for him, members of the Stillwater Fire Department made the same trip.
“If we would have done nothing, he would have died. He had no pulse and was not breathing,” said Chris Zeuli, Stillwater’s Assistant Chief.
The firefighters administered CPR and found a defibrillator in the restaurant.
“It’s part of our job,” said Zeuli, even though they were off, “We weren’t working. You’re right, but it’s still part of our job.”
A doctor told John he had less than a two percent chance to survive. He spent two weeks in the hospital.
“I made a pretty good recovery. My right hand is kind of stiff, numb, but otherwise I made a real good recovery,” the 73-year-old said.
Next Tuesday the city will honor its firefighters for saving John’s life.
"Getting out in the public that more people should learn CPR is what I'd rather people get out of this than recognizing us for doing our job,” said Zeuli.
Jeska and the firefighters knew each other from snowmobiling, but they didn’t know he lived just ten minutes from the station. He knew them well enough to say hi, now he has much more to say.
“I can’t thank them enough,” he said, “There’s no questions I’d have been gone and hopefully in the right place,” he said with a laugh.