Rating:

5.0 (1 vote)

MISSOULA - Hockey goalie Wesley Sink, 49, had the save of his life on March 3. Literally. He just finished a league game and was leading his team out to shake hands when he collapsed on the ice.

"I was talking to one of my teammates and the next thing I know I wake up in the hospital in the Emergency Room," Sink said.

The other people who were at the rink that Thursday night know what saved him. University of Montana student Maggie Roberts was keeping score. She is a certified volunteer Emergency Medical Technician and firefighter in her home state of Maryland. When Sink fell, Roberts, a physician and a trained Life Flight employee rushed out to him.

"The three of us just got in there and just started assessing him and getting his gear off and we got the phone call to 9-1-1 going," Roberts said.

She called for someone to grab the Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) she knew was on the wall.

"Within like 10 compressions we had the pads on and then started analyzing," she said. "It just happened so instantly that made the difference."

St. Patrick Hospital interventional cardiologist Dr. Mark Sanz said that shock saved Sink's life.

"He's a lucky man because normally these people, a good number of them, will pass away," Sanz said. "I would give congratulations to whoever decided to put a defibrillator out there. They saved his life."

That credit goes to Lynn Montgomery, a hockey player and Missoula physician, who died after suffering a sudden heart attack on the same ice in October 2008. The rink did not have a defibrillator back then. Now it does, in Montgomery's name.

That very device saved Sink.

"If it wouldn't have been for that, that would've been it," Sink said. "I mean, I would've been gone. It's very unfortunate what happened to him, but essentially his dying saved my life."

Sink's wife, Theresa, said she was grateful the heart attack happened at the rink. She also plays goalie and their two daughters, Rebecca and Sarah, play hockey, too. The family drives 100 miles to Missoula from Thompson Falls three times a week, on average, just to play hockey.

Theresa said Sink's outcome could have been very different if he went to cardiac arrest on the drive.

"I feel if it wouldn't have been for the crew here and that defibrillator, he wouldn't be alive today," she said. "I mean, this rink saved his life."

And hockey saved his heart.

"In fact, that's the first thing he asked the doctors," Rebecca said. "'Can I play hockey again?' The answer was, ‘You better. That saved your life.'"

One month later, Sink was already back on the ice. This time, he's the one doing the saving.

Contact Breaana Roy