Editor:
I'm not sure if this is the right place to nominate someone but I'd like to recognize the following people who saved my wife's life on the morning of Sept. 11, 2021.
My wife, Flor-Rita Padilla, was working out with her boot camp buddies that morning at approximately 8 a.m. at Kitchener Elementary school in Burnaby. During her warmup, mid-stride, she collapsed. Two of her friends, Tania Zulkoskey and Diane Srivastava, immediately began CPR. They put her in recovery position and then began to clear out her mouth when they realize she was vomiting. My wife took two breathes and then stopped breathing
Tania immediately began chest compressions. Meanwhile, 911 was sending out a call to fire and ambulance. Captain Wisner from fire station 5 on Hastings was responding to the call that was initially reported as a fall. When Captain Wisner got to the scene, he saw that they were performing chest compressions and they had to defib my wife three times before they got her heart to start to beat
My wife survived a heart attack at only 42 years. She will need some physical therapy and is still regaining strength and there are some short-term memory defects that will improve with time. But she survived due to the heroic actions of Diane and Tania and Captain Wisner and his crew. They didn’t just save my wife’s life, but they saved my entire family (my son 11 and my daughter nine) and allowed us to continue our journey together.
I've spoken to multiple doctors in ICU and emergency and they all agree, if CPR was not done and not done correctly, my wife's survival would be slim and if she did survive, her neural defects would impact quality of life severely
Again, I'm not sure if this is the right area to send this nomination but Diane, Tania and Captain Wisner and crew are true heroes in every sense of the word.
I would love to give them some well-deserved recognition as well as stress the importance of how CPR saved my wife.
Vishal Gurung
