PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — On a pleasant Friday afternoon, Stan Stankovich returned to the pickleball courts at Walter Fuller Park in St. Petersburg. Unfortunately, though the weather was perfect for pickleball, he wasn't there to play.
Instead, he was there to thank a special group of people for a special moment he almost didn't get.
"I see friends, I see some pickleball competitors, I see family, but mostly, I see heroes," he said.
Three Mondays ago, he was playing pickleball at the park. One moment, he was scoring points. The next moment, he was on the ground unconscious.
"My state of mind was blissful sleep. Unconsciousness. Rest," he said, his memory of the moment foggy. "I don't know."
It turns out he was having a cardiac event.
Stankovich got lucky. Another pickleball player and friend, Nathan Stine, didn't waste a moment to start chest compressions that he remembered from the CPR training he received years ago when he was a street sweeper for the City of St. Pete.
"Was there ever a moment you thought you were going to lose him?" ABC Action News asked Stine.
"Actually, there were (two)," he answered.
Moments later, however, Stan got lucky again. Other heroes came to Stine's aid.
Fellow pickleball players had rushed to the adjacent city pool and brought back lifeguard Ozzy Figueroa with an AED.
"Honestly didn't have much to really think about in the moment. It was more of a flight or fight reaction — just act without thinking, you know," he said.
It was the first time Figueroa, a 25-year-old welding student at Pinellas Technical College, had used the AED on a real person, but according to Figueroa, he kept a level head and remembered his training.
In that moment of truth, he revived Stan's heart.
"Very glad that it was a great outcome from it, but just shows that the training does produce the outcome — a good outcome," Figueroa said.
Friday, Stankovich reunited with those lifesavers — Stine and Figueroa — and the EMTs who rushed him to HCA Florida Northside Hospital, where he said hospital staff took good care of him and implanted a small defibrillator near his heart.
To his wife, Laura Stankovich, the moment of reunion was more than exceptional. It was a blessing.
"The biggest question for us was, 'Was this, you know, intervention from up above?' And we both believe that it was," she said.
Her husband, Stan, now hopes more people will become CPR/AED trained and more AEDs will be installed across Tampa Bay.
Soon, he'll have the all-clear from his doctor to start playing pickleball again, and he intends to do so.
Stine, who often plays against his good friend Stankovich will show no mercy.
"You know, that's a situational thing," he smiled. "It all depends on the score."
To find a CPR/AED class in Florida, visit the RedCross online.
