Wayne Spears (left) smiles as he listen to Brock Nulph tell how he used CPR to save Spears’ life after he went into cardic arrest. (Billy Hefton / Enid News & Eagle)
This website brought to you in part by the following sponsor:
by Emily Summars
Less than 10 minutes after talking to her husband, Shanna Lunday-Spears’ birthday plans changed. What was supposed to be an evening spent at her sister’s house for a birthday barbecue turned into weeks in the hospital.
“I called him to run through the evening’s events,” Lunday-Spears said. “He (Wayne Spears) was at Save-A-Lot with Brock.”
On Sept. 23, Brock Nulph and Wayne Spears were at the east side Save-A-Lot stocking shelves. Both work for Pope Distributing Company.
“Less than five minutes later, I see him (Spears) fall,” Nulph said. “He hit the shelf with his head and he was snoring. I tapped him, moved him and when he woke up, he was gasping for air.”
Lunday-Spears said what Brock did next saved her husband’s life.
Nulph called 911 as he watched his coworker and friend gasp for air. Following dispatch’s order, Nulph ran to the cashier to see if the store had a defibrillator for Spears’ heart. The store did not.
“Then he went straight purple,” Nulph said about Spears. “Dispatch asked if I knew CPR. I said, ‘no’ but I knew I had his head in the right position and so I started compressions, and I kept doing it until right before the paramedic came over and EMT got there.”
Pope Distributing called Lunday-Spears, telling her there had been a medical emergency with her husband, Wayne Spears. Arriving at the store, paramedics said her husband was in cardiac arrest.
“I said, ‘no, no because that means dead,’”Lunday-Spears said. The paramedic nodded, telling her they needed to get to the hospital fast.
Spears also had an anoxic brain injury due to a lack of oxygen. He wasn’t expected to survive and had no brain activity for two days following the accident, Lunday-Spears said.
Calling him a “miracle man,” Lunday-Spears said her husband woke up and told her he saw everything.
“Wayne this whole time was so sure he arrived at the hospital with me, riding in my passenger’s seat with me and sprinting into the hospital,” she said. “He remembers seeing a guy, knowing he was important, but he couldn’t see his face. Wayne remembers seeing paramedics do compressions on him. He saw them use the defibrillator on him. He saw all the resuscitation efforts.”
Lunday-Spears said on her birthday in the emergency room, Spears told her he was standing next to her.
“I didn’t argue with him,” she said, recounting her husband’s out-of-body experience. “According to him, he was with me the whole time and what he witnessed done to him is what I saw done to him.”
She said her husband described one of the paramedics perfectly – describing everything to a tee.
Spears told his wife, sister-in-law, friends, family – anyone who visited – his story over and over again, detail by detail.
“He said he remembers standing behind me doing CPR, and he kept wondering who I was performing on,” Nulph said.
Spears doesn’t remember any of those stories today. Lunday-Spears said his short-term memory was only about 30-50 seconds long when he woke up. For Spears, the last two weeks are blank.
Spears said the last thing he remembers is the Wednesday before the accident.
“Everyone is calling him ‘miracle man,’” Lunday-Spears said. “He was dead way too long and should be brain-dead. I was given the expectation if he did survive, he would have to be on a ventilator and feeding tube. He wasn’t having brain activity.”
The hospital asked her if she had discussions with her husband regarding quality of life.
“We lost our nephew four months ago, and Wayne made it clear then he didn’t want to be alive in a vegetative state,” she said.
Facing the impossible, one little red blip on the medical monitors gave Spears’ wife hope.
“Every time I would talk to him, there would be a red line on the monitor,” she said. “He said he ‘went back in’ when we started seeing that red line.
“He was trying to breathe over the ventilator. He defied every odd. He’s tougher than boot leather,” she said.
While Spears was in the hospital, his wife tried to keep home life as normal as possible. She came home in the evening to tuck their two children – 11 and 9 years old – into bed and she got them ready for school in the morning. Her day time was spent by Spears’ side.
Now with an internal defibrillator, Spears was released from St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center on Thursday, Oct. 6, nearly two weeks after the incident.
Holding Wayne’s hand, Lunday-Spears said the family couldn’t have handled the situation so well without friends, family, Pope Distributing Company and the amazing hospital staff.
“It’s nice to see everyone pull together,” she said. “Now people are going to fight for shifts with Brock.”
Spears said now he’s just looking to the future. In about 10 days, he goes for a doctor’s visit and the family will take it from there.
“I’ll have that (points to his chest defibrillator) for the rest of my life,” he said. “That’s $100,000 worth of equipment. It makes noises and if my heart ever stops again, they said it will feel like I’m getting kicked in the chest by a donkey.”
Spears said his first day home, he hugged his kids, slept and he felt awesome.
“We can joke a little about it now,” Lunday-Spears said, laughing lightly. “This dude sleeps an hour and he thinks he’s slept for four. In the hospital, I just wanted him to wake up and now I’m begging him to sleep.”
Spears said he is a miracle man. His wife laughs, telling him not to get “too full of yourself.”
Now, the family is trying to get back into a normal routine not filled with hospital food and beeping monitors.
“We don’t know why it happened,” Lunday-Spears said. “We can’t explain any of it at all. None of this is supposed to be possible.”
She said her family is lucky Nulph is a man of action.
“I can’t just sit back and watch,” Nulph said. “Him — being a coworker and friend — I will go and help. My mindset is to help when help is needed.”
It’s not the first time Nulph has been there to help.
A would-be robber was taken into custody after Nulph detained him at an area convenience store in October 2014.
Nulph was making deliveries for Pope to that store when the clerk, Kristi Schiemann, ran into the freezer and said a teenager was attempting the rob the store. Nulph left the freezer as the juvenile was attempting to leave and grabbed the juvenile and took him to the ground.
He grabbed the 14-year-old and took him to the ground, holding him there until police arrived.
“I grabbed him and slammed him to the ground,” he said. “He had a stick as his weapon. It was wrapped up to make it look like a gun.”
Nulph said he talked to the teen before police arrived and asked him why he was robbing the store.
“He said, ‘I guess I’m just stupid’,” Nulph said. “I said, ‘Why aren’t you in school?’ He said he was expelled.”
He later was honored by the Enid Police Department for his actions.
Nulph’s most recent action has rallied others in Enid to follow in his footsteps and help the Spears family.
To aid with ongoing medical bills, local businesses will host several fundraising events and a GoFundMe account has been set up to help the family with medical expenses.
“We’re just so thankful for Nulph, Pope and business owners who have reached out to help and have shared the GoFundMe page,” Lunday-Spears said. “I don’t know how myself and children would’ve made it. We’re not done because we’re home.”