Omaha senior saved after heart attack strikes while playing softball

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - It’s a game that seems like no one’s ever too old to play.

Softball can be played be seniors from 50 to 75. However, this week brought a whole new meaning to ‘keeping your heart in the game.’

Players in Nebraska Senior Softball learned that how they react on the field can be life or death.

Last Monday, 65-year-old John Erwin collapsed at second base, suffering what doctors call a ‘widowmaker’ heart attack.

“The only reason he’s alive is because of this team. This community. Had it happened anywhere else, he wouldn’t have made it,” John’s daughter Tabitha said.

Two fellow payers rushed over to perform CPR.

“At that moment when he stopped breathing, and I just jumped right into chest compressions until I was doing as much as I could, he kept looking like he was coming back,” teammate Steve Triggs said.

“Every thirty, then we did a breath and stuff, it seemed to help out a lot, but yeah he kept coming back,” teammate Brian Kottich said.

The league has an automated external defibrillator, or AED, that a fan in the stands, Stephanie Kottich, grabbed, and applied to John’s chest after his jersey had been torn away.

”I mean chest compressions and all that did good things too, and the breaths, but I think the AED is probably what shocked that in," she said.

Soon, La Vista Paramedics arrived and took over life-saving measures.

However, players still had a job to do: praying for John’s survival.

“We’re very competitive, we want to win, but we want to pray for John now. We pray for his complete healing‚" the league’s chaplain said.

Two days after the incident at second base, John returned to the same field in a facetime call, and from the hospital he joked with those who administered CPR.

”Hey, I love you guys, thanks for all the pain," John said.

“I’m going good, surgery went good, and I’ve only known you guys for a year, but I’m telling you what you are already my best friends.”

During a pause in the action, Senior League players circled John’s daughter, holding a pillow that shows her dad is still in the game of life.

“Thank you all for everything. My dad would not be here today if it wasn’t for everybody that helped, that prayed,” Tabitha said.

She’s thankful the league provides more than just softballs.

“You put one on the top and one at the side of him. It walks you through it,” Stephanie Kottich said.

Players sign a message of strength for one of their own, but it also shows everyone who plays senior softball that they’ve got each other’s back, and heart.

When John arrived at the hospital, he needed an emergency stent with one artery 90% blocked.

He’s been fitted with a defibrillator vest that will allow him to go home soon.