THANKFUL REUNION: Heart attack survivor reunites with lifesaving EMS crews

The best gift Dr. Glen Rydl, Ph.D., ever received came just in time for Christmas, and it didn’t come in a gift-wrapped box.

“There could never have been a gift greater than that night,” Glen said. “I pray every night that I’m here, and I am so thankful that I’m here.”

On Wednesday, Dec. 7, Glen was reunited with the two EMS crews who saved his life.

The event, held at CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Hospital - San Marcos, included the hospital administrator and staff, Emergency Room and ICU nurses, one of Glen’s daughters, and four San Marcos/Hays County EMS personnel  — paramedics Lydia Lopez, and Veronica Lien and EMTs Chad Nettles and Kayden Nichols — who performed CPR on and stabilized Rydl during a Texas State football game.

When Glen first saw the team members, he “could hardly talk.”

“It brought tears to my eyes to know that those people are so trained and so professional and so skilled in that they had the right equipment at the proper time, and they knew how to use it and when to use it,” he said.

On Saturday evening, Sept. 10, Glen was at Bobcat Stadium, watching the Texas State-Florida International matchup with a close friend, Kyle Brookshire, and his wife.

“When the game was over, we got up to walk toward the aisle,” Glen recalled. “I looked at the field, [and] it didn’t look quite right. My friend turned around and said, ‘Why don’t you sit down? I’m going to get you some help.’

“Before I knew it, somebody had me from the back and each side, and they said, ‘Sit on the stretcher, put your feet up, and lean back.’”

Glen would later find out he had suffered wide complex tachyarrhythmia and went into cardiac arrest.

Glen said he “knew nothing” about his condition “until way later down the road.”

“Probably an hour and a half later, my daughter was there from Floresville talking to my good friend and his wife,” Glen said. “One EMS personnel was standing on my left side, and I was trying to thank him. I just couldn’t thank him enough for what they had done.”

Glen spent two days recovering in the ICU and was finally discharged on Tuesday, Sept. 13.

There were two saving graces that night, according to Glen: his good friend, Kyle, and the EMS personnel who were on duty during the football game.

“Had [they] been at the hospital with the ambulance and had to come to the stadium, it would have been too late,” Glen said.

Nichols described Glen as “all smiles” at the reunion event.

“[He] couldn’t stop grinning ear to ear, just saying how thankful he was,” Nichols said.

Historically, San Marcos Hays County EMS hasn’t seen many reunions, “especially [not] like this,” Nichols stated.

“A lot of times what will happen is family members or patients we’ve helped will send thank you cards or they’ll get some cupcakes, some cookies and deliver them to the station,” Nichols said. “But we don’t typically have a lot of people that reach out that want to meet and get to know us and just say thank you. It was incredibly special.”