Survivor Day Celebrates Lives Saved by Paramedics and Other First Responders

Kyle Tazzman is savouring each day as he watches his two young children grow up.

Gisele Bellemore is looking forward to marrying the love of her life and enjoying as much time as possible with the sons who helped save her life.

Wendy Mackay-Robinson’s family got seven months to spend a few more special occasions with her and say their goodbyes.

Their stories were three of 34 shared during the Essex-Windsor EMS and Southwest Ontario Regional Base Hospital Program 9^th Annual Survivor Day. The event, held today (May 27, 2022) at the St. Clair Centre for the Arts in Windsor, celebrated survivors of trauma and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest that happened in 2021 – as well as Tazzman’s case in 2019. It brought survivors who were able to attend together with the paramedics, ambulance communication officers, other first responders and community members who helped them cheat death.

“It is a special and emotional day for all involved,” said Essex-Windsor EMS Chief Bruce Krauter. “The work paramedics do is challenging. Some of the calls they respond to are horrific, and not every life can be saved. When they succeed in keeping a patient alive, they often don’t find out what happened until well after they have delivered that person to the hospital.

“That is why Survivor Day is so important. It recognizes first responders and the public for saving lives, it gives survivors a chance to say thank you and it shows everyone the life-changing impact of these events.”

When Wendy Mackay-Robinson suffered cardiac arrest on Aug. 16, 2021, her husband Dan Robinson performed CPR by following the calm instructions of Lisa Jacobs, a communication officer with the Windsor Central Ambulance Communication Centre. Essex-Windsor EMS paramedics Nicole Hansen and Donna Moss, Chatham-Kent EMS paramedics Mickey Slade and Beth Durocher, and Lakeshore firefighters Patrick Richardson, Mike Sisic and Mike Aubin all responded to the call and helped save Wendy’s life.

The rescue “gave her the time to say goodbye to her family & friends & for them to say goodbye to her,” Dan Robinson wrote Essex-Windsor EMS in an email after she passed away on March 28 this year. “It is a tough, sometimes thankless job your teams do, as you see people at their worst, then try to save them so they can be their best. I cannot thank your team enough for doing this for us, and so many others.”

The email sums up what Survivor Day is all about, said EMS Captain Michella Mollicone, who organized this year’s event.

“It reminds us why we do what we do. It is a privilege to celebrate survivors and reconnect them with first responders. It is also an opportunity to recognize some extraordinary civilians who performed CPR and took other actions to help save a life.”

It was Gisele Bellemore’s son Ryan Gaudet, then 20 years old, who checked her pulse and then started doing chest compressions when she went into respiratory distress at home on March 24, 2021. Her younger son, Adam Gaudet, who was 17 years old at the time, had seen her begin choking and rushed to get his brother.

“I gave them life and they saved mine,” Gisele said of the two boys she raised as a single mom.

Paramedics Shawn May and Luca Distefano and Windsor firefighters Luke Huberty and Michael Sfetkidis took over from Ryan. After several shocks, continued CPR and successfully making sure Gisele’s airway was clear, they saw her pulse had returned. She was taken to the Ouellette campus of Windsor Regional Hospital, where medical staff continued the battle to keep her alive.

Her fiancé, Larry Sawyer, rushed to the hospital and was told there might not be much more that could be done, but Gisele pulled through. She said she doesn’t remember anything that happened for about a week, except that she was fighting to stay alive.

 

Kyle Tazzman’s fight for survival began in a Windsor parking lot on Dec. 29, 2019. Family and friends had gathered there to meet a bus that was going to take them to a Detroit Lions game. Suddenly, Kyle collapsed. His partner, Kristin Gallant, who is a nurse, immediately checked for a pulse, started CPR, and then instructed her brother and father as they took over doing the chest compressions. Others in the group called 911.

 

Essex-Windsor EMS paramedics Ziad Fatallah, Tyson Brohman, Elena Ung, Nicole Hanson and Shawn Rivard responded to the call, as did Windsor firefighters Ryan Lee and Patrick Clair. The paramedics inserted an artificial airway and an IV, continued CPR, and administered five shocks, as well as life-saving drugs, to restart Kyle’s heart. He was rushed to the Ouellette campus of Windsor Regional Hospital. On Jan. 2, 2020, Kyle was flown to the London Health Sciences Centre to have an internal cardiac defibrillator implanted. Four days later, he was released to go home to his family.

He has since returned to work and is busy with Kristin raising their children, Toryn, 2, and Kenna, four months. The couple had a toy bear made for Toryn from the Detroit Lions jersey Kyle was wearing to remind them of the close call.

Kyle has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a genetic condition that causes the heart muscle to grow abnormally thick. Whether it caused his heart to stop is still unknown, he said.

“Luckily, those around me were able to initiate CPR, and thanks to their efforts and the efforts of (Essex-Windsor) EMS, I survived,” Kyle said. “At 25 years old at the time, it’s never something you really think of or expect to happen. However, it does.”

Due to COVID-19, his case couldn’t be recognized in 2020, so it was celebrated at this year’s Survivor Day.

To see more photos and read about all the cases celebrated, go to the Survivor Day May 27, 2022, Stories page on the County of Essex website.