(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A Bourbonnais man says he feels “blessed” to be alive after having to be revived last week on the University of Illinois campus before the Illini football game.
Greg Panozzo, 52 said he woke up feeling a little different last Saturday with some blurry vision, sensitivity to light and feeling warmer than everyone else in the car during the ride to the University of Illinois.
Then he climbed some stairs at the U of I football training center, which his son, who is a high school student, was checking out.
“When I got to the top, I had shortness of breath, I couldn’t catch breath so I ended up taking off my sweatshirt, went and leaned on a rail,” Panozzo said.
He still tried to continue on as if nothing were wrong. He even took a selfie with his family. Soon after, though, Panozzo was given a chair to sit on and he collapsed. Nearby campus police started CPR while a football team staffer got an AED ready to go.
Panozzo’s 50-year old wife, Neelie is a nurse practitioner and thought her husband was having a heart attack when, in fact, he was in cardiac arrest. His heart had stopped.
Neelie said that from the way he looked, she thought, “he was gone."
"His face and his lips were purple and I knew, at that point in my mind, ‘I don’t know if we can save him," she added.
“They resumed CPR, it advised another shock and it was the second shock that, you know, brought him back.”
Panozzo said that after the second shock with the AED, police didn’t know at first that it had worked and resumed CPR. That’s when he shouted to them that they were hurting his chest and they knew he’d been resuscitated.
Panozzo spent a couple of nights in a hospital and is now back home. He said that if it weren’t for the police officers, the U of I staffer and his wife, he wouldn’t be here today.
Panozzo said he has started making drastic lifestyle changes, most notably, with his diet but he said he has a long to go until he’s fully heart healthy.
“Hopefully with the medications I’m on and stuff will start to rebuild my lower heart. Obviously, some lifestyle changes that we’ve put in place."
The Panozzos’ son, Dominic, is a football player for Bishop McNamara Catholic High School. The family was visiting the U of I to check out the school and its football program.
Greg and Neelie Panozzo have two other children who are in their 20's.
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