'Nother Sondy Tale; 'don't think I've posted this before; if so, please
pardon the redundancy. 'Hope it's not too long for a Friday (Moose Day).
HAVBRO'S DOWN!
By Wilton Strickland
One morning about mid-January, 1979, I was sitting at a briefing table in
Havbro Nielsen's office at Sondrestrom Air Base, Greenland. I was Director
of Engineering, in charge of construction and maintenance of all physical
facilities on base. Havbro was the Danish civilian, civil engineering
contractor's chief engineer, my civilian counterpart. I had asked Havbro
about some aspect of one of the projects we had underway. He was standing
on the other side of the table from me using a flip chart to his left as a
briefing aid. The door into the office was behind him.
We were having our usual friendly but very business-like discussion of the
situation at hand. Suddenly, Havbro stopped in mid-sentence, turned and
rushed outside the building. I thought for a second that he had seen
something out the window behind me that needed his immediate attention. I
turned, glanced out and saw nothing unusual. To rush out without saying,
"Please, excuse me", or something to that effect was not like Havbro, at
all. He was every bit a gentleman and a stickler for protocol. I was still
a bit shocked and confused by his sudden departure and even said aloud to
myself, "Well, I guess he'll be back in a minute." He had been gone for
only a few seconds when a Danish workman came rushing inside the building
and past the doorway to Havbro's office yelling, "Call emergency! Havbro's
down! Call emergency!"
As Havbro's secretary grabbed the phone, I rushed outside and found Havbro
lying on the frozen ground immediately outside the doorway. My immediate
thought was that he was dead. His eyes had the classic "blank stare" of
death, and I saw no evidence of his breathing. I felt quickly for a pulse
at his wrist then at the side of his neck beneath his ear; I felt none, but
I also thought, "I may not be feeling just the right place, especially in my
excitement." I felt certain, though, that he was dead.
I had never had any CPR training. I had seen actors on TV "perform" CPR in
such shows as "Emergency", "Squad 51", etc.; I had even seen a couple of Los
Angeles EMT's (emergency medical technicians) on the real Squad 53
performing CPR on an actual victim as I crept past an accident scene in Los
Angeles several months before, but I had never had any training in it and
had never attempted such. My thought was, "Havbro is dead; I must do
something; if I can keep some air/oxygen and blood moving through his system
'til the doctor gets here, it may help." I started pumping slowly and
rhythmically on his chest the way I had seen them do on TV and on the street
in LA as I passed slowly in the car.
Meanwhile, the Danish workman had come back out of the building and was
kneeling beside Havbro, holding his hand and calling, "Havbro! Havbro!" He
also knew that Havbro was dead. I never said a word - I just thought I
would keep pumping as long as it takes - 'til a doctor or EMT could get
there. As I heard the siren of the ambulance a couple of blocks away,
Havbro's eyes suddenly fluttered; he gasped a couple of times and started
trying to get up! The workman and I tried to restrain him and tell him not
to get up - to just lie there, but as the ambulance pulled up, Havbro got up
and walked over to it! He got in the ambulance, and they drove away as the
workman and I just stood there in shocked disbelief.
A few minutes later, the workman and I went to the hospital and told the
nurses and the doctor what had happened. At first, they doubted what we
were telling them, but they soon realized that if it had not been for the
pumping on his chest, Havbro would likely have been permanently dead.
They flew him to Copenhagen the next day for extensive testing and
treatment. I left about three weeks later and have not seen Havbro again.
He recovered and returned to work for several more years at Sondrestrom. I
spoke to him on the phone several months after this incident. He cited some
type of heart problem, but I don't remember the details.
He lived for 17 more years, and died of a heart attack in 1996.
The president of Havbro's company in Copenhagen, Danish Arctic Contractors,
sent the Air Force and me a letter of thanks and commendation for having
such "a well-trained officer who knew exactly what to do in such an
emergency." As I said before, though, I've never had such training, and I
certainly did not know "exactly what to do." I was guided by nothing more
than the basic principles of "never give up," and "no matter how bad things
get, you have to be able to think and do something."
Wilton
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