By Elena Perry
The Spokesman-Review
SPOKANE, Wash. — Brody Graham kneeled over his nonbreathing and bloodied track coach Mike Hadway, desperately performing CPR.
The junior at Lewis and Clark High School had considered the possibility he might someday use CPR, but certainly not on 70-year-old Hadway, who was active and in otherwise good health.
Graham learned CPR while being trained as a lifeguard the summer prior when his instructor told him of another student who had to administer compressions in the middle of a college lecture.
“I was like, ‘That could be me.’ That thought had run through my mind,” Graham said. “And then it happens, and I’m like, ‘Whoa, I’m actually using CPR.’ ”
Dazed, frightened and alone, the LC track team acted quickly when its beloved coach collapsed near Manito Park during practice in a cardiac arrest last March. Seventeen-year-olds Graham and teammate Grant Lichfield decisively and successfully administered CPR to their coach and saved his life, allowing him to return to his family and continue volunteering as one of the most successful running coaches in the Greater Spokane League, in which many local high schools compete.
“It’s terrifying, obviously,” Graham recalled, still picturing the lifeless glaze over Hadway’s eyes. “It’s this person who all I’ve known him has been living, and now it’s like, is he there? Is it Hadway? Or is it Hadway’s body?”
Unlike Graham, Lichfield never could have guessed he would have been in such a scenario, even while being trained to do compressions a week before.
Regardless, Lichfield sprung into action at the sight of his coach as the rest of his team surrounded them, sing-chanting “Stayin’ Alive,” the Bee Gees song that the American Heart Association recommends using as an approximate metronome during CPR.
“In my head I was like, ‘I’m never using that, but whatever. I’ll try to remember that, but odds are I’m never going to use this,’” Lichfield remembers thinking.
He’d broken a few of Hadway’s ribs and sternum during compressions, a sign of effective CPR.
The boys gave CPR for a few precious minutes before paramedics arrived to shock Hadway with a defibrillator and take him to Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center, where he spent five days hospitalized in recovery. Nearby off-duty paramedic Erik Loney, who rushed to assist just before an ambulance arrived, said in March he didn’t think Hadway would have survived without the boys’ intervention.
“I’m indebted to them,” Hadway said. “I’m going to have to pay for their college education,” he added, nudging Lichfield’s knee with a laugh.
Hadway has little recollection of his arrest or collapse, only the moments preceding the fall, giving advice to one of his runners. He didn’t see it coming.
“It’s just like I closed my eyes and opened them, and I was looking at the ceiling of an ambulance,” Hadway recalled. “Paramedics saying, ‘Come on, you can wake up.’ ”
The five-day stay was rough for Hadway, who “hates hospitals,” he said. He became a sort of celebrity among staff who’d heard his story or were familiar with his cross country legacy; some excitedly told him they’d graduated from LC. In the days spent hospitalized, the staff became “like family,” Hadway said.
Recovery at home was arduous, Hadway waiting weeks for his broken ribs to mend and laying low so as to give his heart a rest. His daughter set up a bed in his living room where he passed the time watching the 1950s Western series “Gunsmoke.”
The idle time was unusual for Hadway, still an active coach who took care of his health — a fact that seemed to contradict his heart giving out. In the hours sitting still, his mind would frequently wander.
“I was just trying to wrap my brain around, why me? Why did this have to happen? Because I was so healthy, I still am,” Hadway said.
“I don’t think I really have an answer. I’m thankful; it’s just hard to wrap your brain around,” he said.
Hadway couldn’t sit still forever. Gritting his teeth through the pain and still looking worse for the wear, he returned to Hart Field to watch his athletes race three weeks after his collapse.
Hadway experienced another cardiac arrest in June, resulting in a three-day stint back in the hospital. He’s on the waiting list for a new heart in the next four to five years, though his good health pushes him further down the transplant list.
Some days are worse than others, he said.
After their lifesaving efforts, the boys have become sort of hometown heroes. Lichfield was once recognized while pumping gas.
Others commended the boys on their technique. A doctor told Mike Lee , track and cross country coach with Hadway, that Hadway’s skeletal fractures demonstrate some of the best CPR in the doctor’s medical career.
Hadway’s neighbor, an EMT, told the coach he gave CPR over 30 times in his career with only one survivor.
Despite the attention, the boys remain humble about their actions.
“I think anyone in me and Grant’s situation would want to do CPR, but if you don’t know, you can’t do it,” Graham said. “The only thing that makes me and Grant different from anyone else on the team is that we’ve been trained.”
In their minds, they did what anyone would have done. Teammate Toby Meier isn’t so sure. He turned to the boys in the crisis as the only ones who could help.
“A lot of people, they would be seeing me a little crazed with blood on my hands, I’m all sweaty and saying, ‘You gotta do something,’ they would just freeze up, be like, ‘I can’t, I could kill him, I can’t do that.’ Most people would do that,” Meier said. “Anybody could have been in that scenario, but I don’t think anybody could have acted in the correct way.”
Now, five months from graduating, only one event in their high school careers has held a candle to their successful CPR: winning the cross country state championship in November.
Hadway and Lee coach cross country during the fall, and in the spring lead the distance runners on the track team.
“Honestly, it set our goals on the state title,” Graham said. “We were kind of like, ‘Let’s do it for Hadway.’ ”
Graham finished first among the Tigers and 13th overall, the top-five runners finishing within 14 seconds of each other and the team securing another state championship title for Hadway’s decorated career.
“He’s only done it 10 times,” Graham joked.
In his more than 30 years coaching cross country at Ferris High School, Hadway led 15 teams to state, earning five team titles and three individual championships during that time.
This year’s team is “a special group of guys,” Hadway said, which was true before they saved his life or won state.
“Being able to come together and actually execute when it mattered the most was everything,” Lee said, referring to their state victory and actions when their coach collapsed.
The boys have had eight months to reflect on the incident.
“I think it’s made me more confident,” Lichfield said.
He’s more tuned in to the people around him, should another emergency cross his path. It opened his eyes to a potential future career in medicine, like his father.
Graham long had an interest in medicine, the events with his coach reaffirming his interest in working as a trauma surgeon.
In the high-stress, high-stakes situation in March, the boys proved they can make decisions and quickly turn them into actions. It was a moment of self-discovery, but also in the importance of persistence despite hopelessness.
Hadway has reflected deeply on the trauma, leading him to “kind of look at things differently,” he said.
“Just enjoy life; you don’t know when your time’s up. With me, it could have been in just a split second,” Hadway said. “We get so worried about things in life. We’ve just got to enjoy life.”
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