BILLINGS — A Billings man is alive today thanks to his daughter's quick thinking and CPR training after he suffered cardiac arrest while visiting her in Great Falls in September.
Larry Schlepp had already survived open heart surgery, a triple bypass and multiple strokes over the past decade. But when he collapsed at his daughter's home, there was no warning.
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"I've always had a warning. This time, I just fell over, didn't feel anything different," Schlepp said.
His daughter, Carrie Etcheberry, is a registered nurse who happened to be nearby when her father's abnormal heartbeat led to cardiac arrest.
"My daughter happened to be sitting right there who's an RN and her son and her got me on the floor and started, you know, doing the compression," Schlepp said.
Etcheberry described the moment as surreal, but said her training kicked in immediately.
"I just I don't even know how to describe it other than it was literally like an out-of-body experience for me to just calmly take over," Etcheberry said. "I just, I'm very thankful that I was in the right place at the right time."
Dr. Joe Apostol from St. Vincent Regional Hospital emphasized the critical importance of immediate CPR in cardiac arrest situations.
"There's some statistic that for every minute that you don't have CPR, is a significant percent increase that they won't make it. So, I think that quick onset of CPR, calling 911, those are just very simple, but very important steps," Apolstol said.
Etcheberry's quick response likely saved her father's life. Schlepp has since had a defibrillator surgically implanted and recently completed cardiac rehabilitation.
"That's our goal, is to kind of get them back to, you know, basically their normal living," Apolstol said.
Now, Schlepp is looking forward to watching the rest of his grandchildren graduate, grateful for his daughter's life-saving actions.
"All I can say is how much I love her. And, you know, what she did for me, you just can't. I have a hard time even talking about it because it was so amazing. And my wife told me that she just took over," Schlepp said.
