Man gets to thank those who saved his life
Dec. 8, 2014 started out as a typical day for Terry Back, as he went to the North Fort Myers Recreation Center for a game of pickleball with his friends.
It soon went very wrong. He went into cardiac arrest while sitting in the bleachers following a game.
Thankfully, two friends administered CPR, followed by members of the North Fort Myers Fire Department and the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, and saved his life.
On May 18, at the Lee County Division of Public Safety’s Phoenix Awards ceremony at the Old County Courthouse, Back had a chance to thank those dozen heroes in person with his usual sincerity and humor.
All first responders, as well as his two friends, were feted for their heroic actions along with 26 other teams who did likewise throughout Lee County during this twice-a-year event attended by countless dignitaries, police and fire chiefs and top emergency personnel.
For Back, it was not an obligation to be there, but an honor, seeing as he was lucky to just be there.
“Being allowed to participate in this event is without a doubt one of the greatest honors of my new life,” Back said before joking, “I would not be there without my friends. They caused the problem to begin with.”
Back remembered the day as one where he had just lost a game. He went to the bleachers to rest and waited his turn to play another game.
“I reached for my bottle of water and that’s the last I remember for about 10 days,” Back said.
Thankfully, his friends, Ricardo Hicks and George Spadaro, took action quickly, as both were certified to perform CPR. Hicks works in the medical field, while Spadaro, an ex-Marine, has a Coast Guard captain’s license.
“We saw him up in the stands, keeled over, and went to see what was going on. He was already out. No pulse. We knew what to do and were on it like a duck on a junebug,” Spadaro said.
They worked on him for a few minutes before help arrived, still without a pulse. Jennifer Perry received the call and dispatched paramedic Jeffrey Rountree and EMT Raymond Wiegand to the scene.
Also arriving were North Fort Myers Fire Department personnel: Lt. Mark Westra, engineer Mark Harris, and firefighters Dillon Bryant and Mark McHugh.
From the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, deputies Michael Spencer, Josiah Smith and David Wharton, Sgt. Charles Taggart and Lt. Brian Kyle.
Back recovered quickly and within 60 days had returned to playing pickleball, though some of his fellow players wanted him back sooner.
Back thanked his saviors and gave them each mementos for the occasion. Rountree got a memento from Back’s days in the Bomb Squad, as well as a winter hat with “Phoenix” emblazoned on it.
He then gave thanks to his friends before they earned their Citizen Life Saver Award, one of only a few to be given out.
For Spencer, it was a great feeling to be honored after more than two years on the job, even better to see the man he saved there to witness it and thank him.
“It’s nice to be recognized. It’s better to save a life and see the outcome of it. We normally don’t see that. But to see him walking around opposed to what we saw on scene. It was wonderful,” Spencer said.