Texas Woman Saves Husband with CPR

June 04--When 35-year-old Brian Motto of Austin stopped breathing and his heart stopped beating, he had an advantage that made a life-or-death difference: his wife.

Allison Motto, 32, was sitting with her husband on their couch when Brian's posture suddenly became rigid and he began breathing heavily -- his eyes wide open. His heart had gone into a dangerous rhythm called ventricular fibrillation. He was having a cardiac arrest.

Allison Motto said it took about 30 seconds to realize her wide-eyed husband had fainted. Then, he wasn't breathing.

She pulled him onto the floor and started performing CPR while juggling her cellphone to call 911. She knew from her CPR training as a high school coach -- required of all coaches, band directors and cheerleading sponsors in Texas schools -- that she had only a few minutes.

"You hope you never have to use it on a student," said Motto, who teaches business classes at Dripping Springs High School and coaches girls basketball and volleyball. "I never thought I'd have to use it to save my husband."

The odds were stacked against her husband, said his cardiologist, Dr. Vinh Nguyen.

About 325,000 Americans die of a cardiac arrest every year, most of them at home, according to national data. The most common cause is ventricular fibrillation.

Within four to six minutes, brain damage occurs from a lack of oxygenated blood; death is likely within eight minutes.

Just 8 percent of Americans who are not in a hospital survive a cardiac arrest, an electrical malfunction that causes the heart to stop pumping, said Glen Huschka, a spokesman for the American Heart Association in Austin. Survival varies nationally, and the rate in Austin is 12 percent, Huschka said, citing data from Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services.

"Only about 3 to 7 percent (of survivors) make it out of the hospital without neurological damage," Nguyen said.

Often, there is no warning and, in Brian Motto's case, no heart disease or known cause, Nguyen said.

"It was a completely normal day," Motto recalled. "I felt completely fine."

He had gone to work on April 10 as a counselor and admissions director at St. Dominic Savio Catholic High School in Austin, and afterward he had jogged with one of his two golden retrievers, Rudy. He had dinner with his wife, put their son, Joseph, then 5 months old, to bed for the night, went to the grocery store and watered the lawn. Finally, about 9 p.m., he relaxed with his wife on the couch.

"I don't remember anything after that," he said.

When Allison Motto, who married Brian in 2010 after a long-distance courtship between his home in Dayton, Ohio, and hers in Austin, realized he wasn't breathing, she stifled the urge to cry.

With the 911 operator on the line, she followed instructions to count aloud 100 chest compressions a minute. She knew mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was no longer a necessary part of CPR.

In about six minutes, two police officers arrived, and one took over CPR until about four firefighters showed up. The firefighters -- also trained as emergency medical technicians -- cut off Brian's shirt and used an automated external defibrillator to shock his heart into a normal rhythm.

As he was being put in the ambulance, she was told he had a pulse. She called family members. Her father, Phil Ballinger, drove her to St. David's South Austin Medical Center; her mother, Denise, stayed with their baby.

At the hospital, he talked to his wife but "his voice didn't sound like Brian, and he was making (strange) facial expressions," she said. "He kept asking, 'What happened?' and saying, 'I'm sorry.' "

The nurse wrote "hello" on a piece of paper, but he could not read it.

"The nurse said later that she was afraid he would have to learn to read again," Allison Motto said.

She didn't care; she just wanted him to live.

Doctors implanted a defibrillator in his chest to help maintain a normal rhythm and sent him home after three days. Although he doesn't remember the cardiac arrest or the first 24 hours of his hospitalization, his brain is normal and "fully functional," said Nguyen, the cardiologist.

Since then, the couple have reflected on what happened. They have emphasized to others the importance of knowing CPR. They have thanked the police and firefighters -- and God.

"This is my second second chance," said Brian Motto, who had a benign tumor removed from a highly delicate part of his brain when he was a senior in high school.

Both said it was a blessing that they were together when the cardiac arrest occurred. Brian Motto had been alone most of the evening.

"I will obviously be forever grateful that I get to wake up next to the person (who) truly is the reason I am here," he said, gently stroking his wife's back, his eyes welling with emotion on a recent evening.

Allison Motto is modest about what she did. "I'm just blessed I had enough (skill) to matter," she said. "I think God has a plan for Brian."

Contact Mary Ann Roser at 445-3619

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