Fairview Heights officers honored for saving life of motorist

Two months after four Fairview Heights Police Department officers began CPR on a motorist who had crashed into a church after suffering a heart attack, the department publicly praised the men who helped save the motorist’s life.

According to police department reports, Edward Frawley was headed eastbound on Lincoln Trail when he lost control of his car at just before 7 p.m. on Oct. 13 and struck First Baptist Church.

When officers arrived, they quickly determined that Frawley, 32, of Fairview Heights was in cardiac arrest.

He had no pulse and was not breathing.

Four officers — Martin Gordon, Brandon Strickland, Tim Birckhead and Will Rowland — teamed up to perform chest compressions and used a defibrillator three times to shock the victim’s heart back into rhythm.

“I really don’t remember anything. I woke up in the hospital and got told I had a heart attack and found out I was driving while it happened,” Frawley said Thursday, a day after his 33rd birthday. “It was a little crazy, a little unbelievable. I still have to grasp my mind around it that it happened.”

Frawley said the four Fairview officers worked on him until an ambulance arrived. The ambulance crew took over and continued working on him as he was transported to Memorial Hospital. He said his heart finally began beating normally after 47 minutes of work by the officers and paramedics.

Doctors call the type of heart attack Frawley had a “widowmaker” due to how catastrophic those attacks normally are. “When that happens, you’re pretty much done for,” Frawley said.

Still unstable, Frawley was flown to St. Louis University Hospital, where he spent two weeks in a coma. He also caught double pneumonia while he was there. But now, he’s mostly fine, save for regular physical therapy and checkups.

“Now I’m doing great, normal as can be,” he said. And he’s also thankful for the police officers who came to his aid and for the department that makes sure those officers are equipped.

“It makes you grateful to work for a department that has the support to get the tools we need,” Detective Brian Schrieber said about the defibrillator officers used to save the victim. “It’s not the first time we’ve had to use them.”

This story was originally published December 17, 2015 at 1:52 PM with the headline "Fairview Heights officers honored for saving life of motorist."