LENA, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – An Oconto County man is turning one of the scariest moments of his life into a learning lesson. Marv Andree from Pound Wisconsin is now using his experience to save others.
Andree tells FOX 11 he was in the worst place possible when he suffered a heart attack.
“I was getting off at the Abrams exit, and I just sort of rolled through the stop sign and right in the ditch.”
He was driving to work.
“There was a point that I was dead. My heart stopped beating.”
Andree doesn’t remember anything from that day, only what others have told him. The 58-year-old now credits his life to a few heroic bystanders and one important tool.
“The nurses that were on the scene kept my heart going with CPR but it was the AED that shocked it and put it back in order.
Reserve Deputy Dale Liebergen, with the Oconto County Sherriff’s Office, says a fellow deputy, Joe Lebreck, was the first to respond to the scene for the Oconto County Sheriff’s Department.
Liebergen says Lebreck had just gotten the automated external defibrillator weeks earlier.
“The only AED that we have in the county was available and there within minutes.”
Andree’s wife, Dawn, says she and her husband are both lucky and thankful the defibrillator was there to be used.
“We found out because this happened to us that officer Joe Lebreck worked very hard to get that AED in his vehicle writing grants trying to get donations.”
Now the Andrees are raising money to make sure that an AED is in every patrol car in Oconto County.
“We are taking donations. We are also selling candy bars here today at breakfast on the farm.”
A GoFundMe page has also been set up online with a goal of $5,000.
Liebergen says patrol cars are usually the first to arrive on a scene, so having an AED in every car can be the difference between life and death.
“You lose about ten percent of your heart function every minute. In our county, a five minute response time would be quick but you’ve already lost 50 percent of heart function.”
“We are just are so grateful and so thankful otherwise I would not be here with my husband today,” said Dawn Andree.
“Seconds count, really seconds count,” said Liebergen
Each AED costs around $1,600. The Andrees hope to be able to provide the sheriff’s department with at least five through their fundraising.
