Couple thanks police for life-saving medical care

LYNN – A city couple said police and emergency workers were heroes after two officers saved the woman’s life when her breathing and heart stopped during an asthma attack.”They’re heroes, every one of them are heroes,” Estes Street resident Ken Dexter said Sunday. “I’ve worked in an intensive care unit for eight years and know that when somebody goes down in the field, you don’t usually get them back.”Ken said he was about to leave home to pick up one of the couple’s sons at school on March 28 when his wife, Kim Dexter, who has had asthma for about 27 years, texted Ken from the bedroom. She said she was starting to have an asthma attack.By the time Ken got to the bedroom, he said Kim wasn’t breathing. A registered nurse, Ken began performing CPR while another son called 911.Ken said Kim had asthma attacks before, but “she had never gone into respiratory failure before. It was a really big scare.”Lynn Police Officers Ralph Sirois Jr. and Randy Muth were the first on scene and saw Kim lying on the ground with her face completely blue.Police learned Kim was not breathing and had no pulse. Ken continued chest compressions while Sirois gave rescue breaths and Muth set up an automatic external defibrillator, police and Ken said.They were able to restart Kim’s heart, and she began breathing on her own as emergency workers and the fire department arrived on scene. Kim began speaking with rescuers in the ambulance.”I guess there were six medics, I only remember two of them,” Kim recalled while recovering at home Sunday. “I remember the one who kept rubbing my sternum; I didn’t like him because that hurt! The one on my left, I kept looking at him, he was very calm, and spoke very quietly.”Kim said she actually felt very calm both before and after the cardiac and respiratory arrests.”I know that everyone in my house was in panic mode,” she said. “I felt calm, there was nothing I could do, my husband and kids were there and I felt calm … I came to and I felt very relaxed, almost like I went to sleep.”But Kim said she looked at the clock in the ambulance and realized she had “lost” 45 minutes. When she recalls the event, she said she starts to cry and she is having nightmares where she is afraid she will never wake up. But on March 28 and during her nightmares, she does awaken; and her husband is with her.”Five minutes later (on March 28) and he would have been gone to get my son, I’m very lucky,” Kim said.To prevent further attacks, the house underwent a full cleaning and the suspected triggers of the attack – the family cat who had just hidden her four newborn kittens underneath the couple’s bed – were all placed in new homes before Kim returned from the hospital.Another important activity was accomplished Wednesday, when the Dexters visited officers Sirois and Muth and dropped off treats for the EMS workers.”They are heroes; they are fantastic,” Ken said. “I wanted to let them know, they gave me back the best thing in my life.””They did a really good job,” Kim said simply. “The police are wonderful.”