From: "Rich Gauszka" 



http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20060205/1054419.asp

Youth saves life of woman who saved him years earlier

Stunning event had odd sense of balance


Kevin Stephan always wanted to find the right way to thank the off-duty
nurse who got his 11-year-old heart beating again after a baseball bat
struck him in the chest in 1999.
Nine days ago, the now-17-year-old Kevin found the perfect way to thank Penny Brown.

He returned the life-saving favor, rushing out of a Depew restaurant
kitchen to administer the Heimlich maneuver as Brown choked on her lunch.

In a sense, Brown saved Kevin's life - so he could help save hers.

Initially, he didn't even know the woman he helped on the afternoon of Jan.
27 was the nurse who saved his life on a baseball diamond 61/2 years
earlier.

Kevin's mother - who happened to be in the restaurant that afternoon - was
the first to realize the link between the two events.

"Oh, my goodness," Lorraine Stephan told Brown. "You saved
my son's life seven years ago, and now he's saved yours."

It's a pair of incidents that, by comparison, would make a pair of
lightning strikes in the same spot seem highly probable. And a pair of
events that would be described as too hokey, if you saw it on a TV show.

"Wow. I couldn't believe it," said Kevin, now a senior at
Lancaster High School. "Everyone I have told is like, "No way.'
They're in total disbelief."

While neither Kevin nor Brown sought publicity for their actions, they both
wanted to emphasize the need for people to be prepared - to learn CPR, the
Heimlich maneuver and other life-saving techniques.

"This is the essence of what we're about and what we do," said
Nancy M. Blaschak, executive director of the local chapter of the American
Red Cross. "We teach people to save people's lives, and that's
happened."

Blaschak said the Red Cross would love to see one person in each household
learn such life-saving measures.

"This helps get our message out, in an extraordinary way," she said.

Like virtually everyone else involved in this story, Kevin, an outgoing
teen with a big smile, is at a loss to make any logical sense out of the
two events.

But he thinks it's more than a coincidence: "It's one of those things
you can't explain. It was meant to happen. I'm Catholic, and I believe the
Lord kind of set things up. They say things happen for a reason, and
nothing is a coincidence."

His mother added, "I believe both of these lives were touched by the
hand of God."

Brown, an intensive-care nurse at Buffalo General Hospital, said she can't
think too long about the two incidents "without being freaked" by
it.

"It's almost impossible to believe, but I'm very appreciative of what
occurred," she added. "One good turn deserves another."

The first life-saving incident occurred in July 1999, at a field across
from Erie Community College's North campus. Kevin was acting as a batboy
for his brother Rob's baseball team. It was between innings, and Kevin
remembers walking into a practice cage near the dugout to pick up some
bats. A batter whose back was turned toward Kevin struck him in the chest
with his backswing.

"All I remember is getting hit, turning around and walking like two
steps back toward the dugout," he said. "And then I remember
waking up on my back, with a doctor kneeling over me."

Kevin fell face-first onto the ground. A coach rolled him over, he's been told.

And Brown, the registered nurse, came rushing from the stands to help.

Brown saw that Kevin was starting to have a seizure and was in cardiac
arrest. She smacked him once on the chest, hard.

"It didn't really work, so I started CPR," she said.

He quickly began breathing. After several hours in the hospital, he was
cleared and sent home.

Lorraine Stephan remembers the enormity of the situation finally hitting
home for her and her husband, Gregory.

"Later that night, after we came home and the children were in bed, we
both broke down, realizing that we almost lost our child," she said.

Fast-forward to nine days ago.

Kevin, who was working only because it was Regents week and he had no
school, began his dish-washing shift at about 7 a.m.

Around 2 p.m., Lorraine Stephan recognized the Brown family. Minutes later,
she looked up to see Penny Brown in distress, her hands to her throat as
she struggled to get air while choking.

Lorraine Stephan jumped to her feet and shouted for the fry cooks to get
her son out in the dining room immediately. The manager, knowing that Kevin
is a Bowmansville volunteer firefighter, also summoned him.

Kevin ran out, saw a waitress trying to do the Heimlich and realized the
woman was choking.

"I got behind her and started to do the Heimlich, and after two
thrusts, the food came out into her hand," he said.

So, it turns out, in yet another curiosity, both rescue efforts succeeded
on their second tries.

As he realized what he had done, Kevin heard the punchline from his mother.

"That was Mrs. Brown," she told him. "That was the lady who
saved you."

Then Kevin walked back into the kitchen to resume washing dishes.

His quick action showed Kevin that you never know when you're going to use
a life-saving technique: "I didn't wake up that morning and say,
"I'm going to do the Heimlich today.' "

Anyone who knows Kevin, a member of Boy Scout Troop 601 and the
Bowmansville Fire Department Explorer Post 56, isn't surprised by his
actions.

"He's very mature for his age, a quick thinker and quick to act,"
said fellow firefighter Dan Curtis.

One of Kevin's Scout leaders, Gerald E. Robert of Boy Scout Troop 601,
called it the most amazing story he has heard in 30 years of scouting.

"The Lord works in mysterious ways," Robert said, "and this
proves it."

Not long after the Jan. 27 incident at the restaurant, Kevin called Dan
Curtis to thank him for teaching him the right way to perform such
life-saving techniques a few years ago.

"Life is extremely valuable, and you don't always get a second
chance," Curtis said of Kevin's actions. "What a way to be able
to say thank you to someone."

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