'Like A Miracle': Homer Glen Couple Grateful To Paramedics After Near-Fatal Heart Attack

HOMER GLEN, IL — Homer Glen residents Laura and Lenny Vigna were preparing for the holiday season like every other family, when on the morning of Dec. 19, Lenny suffered a heart attack.

In a storm of "perfect" circumstances, the 66-year-old Homer Glen resident has now recovered and is doing very well.

"This is one of those situations where initially the confidence level wasn't high," Battalion Chief Sean McCormack told Patch.

Lenny was just getting up for the day, making it out to the hallway of his home, before he collapsed. Fortunately, Laura was already awake and downstairs in the home, and heard the noise when Lenny fell.

"She had expressed that if he had passed out anywhere else that she wouldn't have heard him," McCormack said.

Not only was Laura able to hear Lenny fall, but he also landed on his back.

"I would not have been able to flip him," Laura told Patch. "I've had two knee replacements, I don't even know how I got down on the floor with him."

Laura said she doesn't remember much, but she was able to somehow grab her phone and place a call to 911. The dispatcher began coaching Laura through CPR.

"The dispatcher told me exactly what to do," Laura said.

McCormack said that the call originally came in for a fall victim, but was escalated to a full cardiac arrest. The fire district tries to put seven paramedics on these types of calls, and each person has a very specific job.

"There's no confusion, everyone has a job," he said. One person will be on the airway, one person on the monitor, and McCormack's job is to talk to the family to get patient information.

Laura recalls how McCormack kept speaking to her, keeping her focus and moving his body to block the scene while paramedics worked on her husband.

McCormack said at one point during the call, Lenny's heart did lose all electrical activity. Paramedics were able to get his pulse back, and transferred him to an ambulance.

"Your survival chances are less than 10 percent if you have a cardiac arrest outside the hospital," McCormack stressed. He emphasized the importance of early intervention in these types of calls, including trying to do CPR before first responders can get there.

"Just try," McCormack stressed.

Not only was Laura able to begin CPR when Lenny fell unconscious, but first responders were also able to get to the scene very quickly, as the Vignas live down the street from the fire station.

"It's kind of like a miracle," Laura told Patch. "Not every fire house even has the equipment they have. A lot of things just worked out the right way."

Lenny, who is a retired City of Chicago fleet management worker, said he is doing well after his heart attack. He was in the hospital for a week, and had his bypass operation the day after Christmas.

"It just was not his time," Laura said. "I'm so grateful to the fire department and to those paramedics."

"I wanted to meet [the paramedics] face-to-face," Lenny said. Last month, Lenny and his family and friends even paid a visit to the Homer Township Fire Protection District to thank the paramedics who helped save his life. The paramedics, the dispatcher, and Lenny's wife, Laura, all received awards from the fire district for saving Lenny's life.

"They saved his life, and they saved my life too," Laura said. "I don't know if they even realize how grateful we are."