Article Link: https://www.firstalert4.com/2024/09/17/body-cam-video-ofallon-il-first-responders-save-man-cardiac-arrest/
‘O’FALLON, Ill. (First Alert 4) — Matthew Burke was at a yard sale at O’Fallon Township High School when he felt out of breath and needed to take a break. It was something that had been happening to him for a few weeks.
“I’d sit down, catch my breath, then go back to it, whatever I’m doing,” Burke said. “I thought no big deal, it’ll go away.”
He and his wife left the yard sale that Saturday, August 17, and were headed to Savers. Burke drove his black GMC truck with a hitched trailer full of yard sale items as his wife followed in her car. As the two drove on West Highway 50 approaching the intersection at Old Collinsville Road, Burke’s truck began to slowly drift into the oncoming lanes of traffic. Something was clearly wrong.
“Everything in slow motion started going blurry,” he said. “It was like from the outside going in, it was weird.”
His truck came to a rest on the curb. All the doors were locked, so his wife, Tiffany Burke, tried to bust the back window with a curtain rod to no avail.
An off-duty O’Fallon police officer, Gavin Gonzalez, just happened to be driving through the intersection at the time of the incident. He walked up and saw Matthew Burke unconscious at the wheel.
Gonzalez knew he needed to get him out of the truck as soon as possible. A bystander found a rock somewhere in the area of the nearby strip mall parking lot and handed it to him.
“There’s no rocks in that parking lot at all,” Gonzalez said. “And he just comes up with this, like, boulder. I was like, where did you get that from?”
Never mind where the rock came from. Gonzalez pierced the back driver’s side window, and he and other bystanders were able to get Matthew Burke out.
“He was cold to the touch,” Gonzalez said. “He was in agonal breathing.”
It was a sign that he may have been going into cardiac arrest. The clock was ticking on Matthew Burke’s life.
About 10% of people who suffer an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survive the incident, according to the American Heart Association. Immediate CPR can double or triple a person’s chance of survival.
When Matthew Burke stopped breathing entirely, Gonzalez started CPR. Four on-duty officers and an EMS crew were on the way. Their actions — as well as those of good Samaritans — were detailed by body camera video from responding officers that was obtained by First Alert 4.
Tiffany Burke could only watch as her husband laid on the grass without a heartbeat. Strangers prayed with her, tried to keep her calm, and got her water.
“Everybody who took that time out of their day to stop, to help him, to help try to get me through it, they were a Godsend,” Tiffany Burke said. “I don’t know what it would have looked like if we didn’t have that kind of help.”
The incident quickly became personal for responding Officer Will Carter. He had previously worked with Tiffany Burke for six years. The thought of him having to deliver bad news was running through his mind.
“If I were to see her out at the grocery store, would she think that I let her down?” Carter said in an interview. “Would she have any kind of animosity or remorse towards me?”
Officers and paramedics quickly got Matthew Burke on a stretcher, into an ambulance, and attached an AED. With a shock advised, everyone stood clear.
“Chest compressions, go,” a responding paramedic is heard saying on body camera video after the first shock.
Still no heartbeat. Three minutes passed with another round of chest compressions, and another shock was advised. Everyone stood clear again.
With the second shock, the tone among the first responders instantly changed.
“We got a pulse,” another paramedic said.
Responding Officer Bradley Lewis couldn’t believe it.
“There’s no way this guy is awake and talking right now,” Lewis said in an interview. “I was literally just seconds ago doing compressions on him.”
By the first responders’ reactions on scene and in interviews with the responding officers, it was obvious that Matthew Burke’s quick revival was not a common event. Almost exactly nine minutes after the first officer got to the scene, Burke was awake and talking to first responders.
“I’ve only had that happen I think twice in my six-year career here as a law enforcement officer,” responding Officer Scott Votrain said.
Tiffany Burke could not hear the excitement inside the ambulance. She stood on the nearby sidewalk, trying not to pass out as Votrain walked over to update her. She was expecting the worst.
“It looked like he was shaking his head no,” she said.
After Votrain got to the sidewalk, he let her know her husband had a heartbeat and was breathing.
The Burkes got to thank the officers in person Monday at the O’Fallon Police Department. It had been 23 days since the scare on his life.
“If it would’ve happened anywhere else, I’m sure I wouldn’t be here today” Matthew Burke said during the emotional reunion.
He kept the rock that off-duty officer Gonzalez used to break his window. He wants all the officers and paramedics who were there to sign it as a keepsake.
And it’s not only a rock and a broken window he’s left with. He said he also has a newfound appreciation for life.’