When 82-year-old Doyle Stobaugh's heart stopped beating, he was in the right place at the right time.

On Oct. 24 at the Conway Senior Center, employees Elisa Key and Jo-Ed Woodward acted quickly, using an automated external defibrillator to save Stobaugh's life.

Stobaugh said on that day, he did not feel quite right.

"I started not to come (to the center) that day. It's a good thing I did," he said.

Key, the center's activity director, said, "He volunteered to say the blessing that day. It was very touching for some reason."

A few moments later, she was assisting another gentleman when "someone hollered 'Someone's down.' I came running. Doyle was lying by the water fountain in a pool of blood," she said.
Woodward said Key told her to get the AED. The center has six, and one was nearby. Woodward retrieved it and brought it to Key. Meanwhile, executive director Debra Robinson had called an ambulance.

"His face was literally black. His eyes were open and staring. I didn't recognize him, and I see him every day," Woodward said.

Key began to follow the instructions given by the AED, which provides voice prompts. It directed her to push the button to deliver a shock and to administer CPR.

"Neither one of us had ever done it before except we had the training three months ago," Woodward said. "It was the scariest thing I've ever experienced in my 64 years, and I've never felt so helpless in my whole life."

"It was a day none of us will ever forget," Key remarked.

Woodward said, "Up to that time, my exchanges with him had been hi, good morning now I feel like he's kin folks."

Stobaugh said to his rescuers, "You don't know how much I appreciate y'all."

After the ambulance whisked him away, Stobaugh had more hardships ahead.

Woodward had called his daughter, Debbie Stobaugh, who was only five minutes away. She arrived at the center as the ambulance was taking him away. Shortly after her father's arrival at the hospital, the doctor did not give him a good prognosis.

"In a nutshell (the doctor said), 'if you know anybody who wants to see him, you need to call them, because he's not going to make it to tomorrow,'" she said. "He said they were going to put us all together in a room, and I knew what that meant."

Doyle Stobaugh surprised the doctor by making it through the night, however.

"(The doctor) said he could be turning the corner," Debbie Stobaugh said.

Based on her father's wishes, she had him transferred to the veteran's administration hospital, where he had an operation to take out his pacemaker and put in a pacemaker/defibrillator combination. He got an infection and had to have another operation to fix the infection. He spent two months in rehabilitation. He now wears an external defibrillator that he will have until he has healed enough to have another one surgically implanted, Debbie Stobaugh said.

A week ago Thursday, Doyle Stobaugh was released from the hospital, and on the following day, he went to see his friends at the senior center.

"We have nothing but praise for the people here at the senior center and what they've done. They knew what to do and had the right equipment. If it happens to me, I hope I'm here," Debbie Stobaugh said. "I know things worked out by the grace of God. He was in the right place at the right time."

She said the paramedics and doctors told her if it had not been for the AED and the quick actions of Key and Woodward, her father would not have survived.

"If they had not had that (AED), he would not be here today," she said.

Six AEDs have been donated to the Conway Senior Center: One by Epsilon Beta Sigma Phi, one by Hendrix College Campus Kitty and four by Conway Regional Medical Center.

(Staff writer Rachel Parker Dickerson can be reached by e-mail at rachel.dickerson@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1277. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)