Ian and Cynthia Linnabary were visiting their son and his family in Park City from Illinois last week. On Aug. 21 Ian climbed Utah Olympic Park on his bicycle, a ride he’d done before.
“But I was not hydrated,” he said. “Altitude was another part of the problem. And I was having bouts of low blood pressure, so they just said it was the perfect storm.”
Close to the bottom of Bear Hollow Drive, Ian had a cardiac event and blacked out. Witnesses said he slowly turned to the right, hit the curb and collapsed.
Retired police officer and Sun Peak resident Ross Heaton was also out for a ride when he saw the crowd gathering in his neighborhood.
“Here was this guy laying there on his back and a bunch of people kind of standing around,” Heaton said.
Park City Gardens employees Chris Johnson and Allison Magrane had been notified by a bystander who ran into the nearby nursery's parking lot to see if anyone knew CPR. Both Johnson and Magrane were CPR-certified and went to help and began chest compressions.
When Heaton arrived, he took over chest compressions. He said they couldn’t detect breathing or a pulse, so Johnson stabilized Ian’s head and began mouth-to-mouth.
“He was completely blue—totally cyanotic,” Heaton said.
A fourth person, a doctor, helped too, monitoring Ian’s wrist for a pulse.
“At one point, just before the paramedics arrived, the doctor said, ‘I've got a pulse." He could feel it in his wrist,” Heaton related. “He said, ‘It's thready, but it's there.’”
Ian coughed a little, and Heaton said there was some foam in his mouth.
That’s when Park City paramedics arrived and took over. Summit County sheriff’s deputies, Park City police officers and Park City firefighters were also at the scene.
At home, his wife Cynthia had seen he was on Bear Hollow Drive.
“I was tracking him on an app that I use to track him when he cycles so that I'm sure that I know where he is and that he isn't hurt,” she said.
When she checked again, the tracker was at the University of Utah Medical Center.
“And that's when I knew something wasn't right. We just dropped everything and drove from Park City up to Salt Lake City to the university hospital,” Cynthia said.
The Park City Fire District said Ian arrived in critical condition Eventually, he regained consciousness.
“I remember they were looking at me and they asked me how I felt. ‘I feel fine,’” he said. “And they said, ‘Do you know where you are?’ I said, ‘Looks like a hospital.’”
Heaton had called every hospital in the area. The medical center confirmed Ian arrived alive, and connected Heaton with a social worker who reached Cynthia.
Ian called Heaton the next day. Ian, Cynthia, Ian’s daughter-in-law, Heaton, Johnson and Magrane got together at the nursery for coffee Aug. 23.
Both Johnson and Magrane were happy to have been in the right place at the right time and that there were other bystanders willing to help.
"I was just happy I could be there to run and help," Magrane later told KPCW.
No one was able to identify the doctor afterward.
Ian and Cynthia both said the bystanders who jumped in saved his life that day. Ian thanked the hospital and paramedics too.
“I absolutely am very grateful for being here, still, and happy to have met the people that have taken care of me,” he said.
Ian told KPCW the bicycle, an S-Works Epic Hardtail, is in good condition as well.
