Roman philosopher Seneca is attributed to saying, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” If that saying holds, Mark Owings is an extremely lucky man. On a hot fall day in Arkansas, Mark suffered a massive heart attack after playing 80 minutes of rugby in a friendly match between the Springfield Rugby Football Club and the Little Rock Stormers. If not for the quick and trained CPR response and use of an on-hand Automated External Defibrillator (AED)at the pitch, Mark would have not survived. This is Mark Owings and this is the story of the people who saved his life and how he living his next chapter.
Mark has always been a bigger guy and after he played offensive tackle at Central Methodist College, his doctor suggested playing rugby to stay active and healthy. The doctor pointed him in the direction of Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas and it was there where Mark got his first taste of the sport in 1988. A year later, he started playing in earnest at Missouri Southern State College in Joplin, Missouri.
After college, he joined Springfield and has played there off-and-on ever since. Mark was a utility player, primarily at second row and front row, throughout the 1990s, until he took a step back to work on the administrative side of the club and the physical maintenance of the field and property. When a coach came out that he had played with earlier in 2011, Mark strapped up his boots once again and began coaching too.
That brings us to 2019. Two weeks before the incident, Mark played at the Aspen Ruggerfest in the middle of September and had played four matches within the tournament. Aside from the altitude, he didn’t have any issues at all and had made the trip more for the fun than the rugby.
Skipping ahead to the Thursday before October 5th, Mark visited his doctor and she said his blood pressure looked good. Mark had lost 40 pounds over the last year but still overweight by the standards. The doctor drew blood and based on the appointment; she had no concerns about Mark’s health.
On game day, Mark described it as a fairly normal day in the life of traveling rugby side. “My girlfriend and I met one of the other players who generally travel with us for an away match. We met for breakfast and then drove the four hours to Little Rock. To be honest, that is the last thing that I remember about that day. I remember a little bit of arriving at the club, but little else. I remember talking to Wilma Keller (the Greater Little Rock Rugby Chairman) and eerily enough, we talked about the AED machine and the fact that she had to make sure it was charged and ready to go. As for the match, I have no recollection of playing and just bits of prep before the match. I can tell you that it was a fairly normal day for early October, a little warmer in Little Rock than Springfield, but nothing out of the ordinary.”
“I have no recollection of what happened after the match,” Owings continued. “I was told that I was complaining about being hot and since the club did have shower facilities, I chose to take a shower to cool myself down. I was told that I needed assistance in the shower. I was on the floor just letting the water run over me and attempting to drink a sports drink to rehydrate. I then asked my girlfriend for the keys to the car where I continued to attempt to cool down. I was told that the car ran for about a half an hour and then I reportedly shut it off. It was here where Shelly said she came to check on me and found me completely unresponsive.”
At that moment, all hell broke loose. Mark’s girlfriend screamed and the dogs started barking loudly. Everyone rushed to see what happened and a special few sprung into action. Hannah Jo Bade, from Springfield's side, was one of the first people on the scene and recognized the emergency. She jumped into the car to start chest compressions and then more people arrived to help.
Zack Tisdale, a 20-year-old Little Rock player who learned CPR from working as a lifeguard at a local water park but never actually performed it said, “Mark was grey and there was no color in his face, his mouth was open, and his head was back. This girl, that was from Springfield, jumped in the car and started doing compressions on his chest immediately. Brett Bibel, David Caswell, and I pulled him out of the car and set him on the ground on the gravel and that was when I started chest compressions.”
“They said I did it for about 10-15 minutes, then switched with David,” Tisdale added. “I was checking his pulse while David doing compressions. Brett went and got the AED, he started taking some breaths. 45 seconds to a minute after David started doing chest compressions was when Brett got back with the AED. It said shock advise so we all got off it and shocked him. We continued CPR and eventually, his heart started beating on its own again and he started breathing. Right about that time, he started breathing and about a minute or two after that, the ambulance showed up.”
Wilma and John Keller brought the AED to the scene and handed it off to Bibel. Little Rock had purchased the AED about ten years ago after a couple of the women’s players, who were nursing students, had just watched an Old Boys match suggested the club get one. “We bought it along with the wall cabinet on eBay,” Keller said. “We are fortunate to have a permanent structure to house it. There is a blinking green light that indicates the battery is good. I check the light most every Saturday and the women, since it is in their bathroom, check it during the week on practice nights. That Saturday was the first time we have had to use it. We replaced the pads at the beginning of the summer and I actually held my breath when Brett turned it on.”
Bibel, who had just taken a CPR and AED class three days before for his annual certification for the Air Force, said, “Zack had started CPR on him and I hooked up the AED to him. Once you turn it on, it self-analyzes and tells you whether or not to shock and it advised to shock him and I did. We kept providing life support until the EMTs were able to get there because the closest hospital to the field is a good 15 to 20 minutes away. The first people that showed up were in terms of emergency management were some volunteer firefighters. Once the ambulance got there, they were able to get him in there and get him to the hospital.”
Before the ambulance arrived, the Quail Creek Volunteer Fire Department and the Pulaski County Sheriff all responded to the call. The time from the 911 call and until the ambulance arrived was 11 minutes. Mark was taken to UAMS Medical Center and went immediately into surgery. The surgeons found that his coronary artery was 100% occluded, or blocked. The blood clot was removed and a stent was placed.
The first thing Mark remembers is waking up in the intensive care unit and still having the breathing tube in. His first reaction, “What the hell just happened.”
“I was in the hospital for five days,” Owings recollected. “From dead, I'm was doing great and I started cardio rehab. On the first day at rehab, I had another incident. I was hooked up on the monitors at that time and the cardio rehab nurse and I were talking about 'you know what' was going on. We came to the conclusion that it was probably nothing I need to worry about and I’ll try not to overdo it. I went through the weekend and then went to rehab on Monday and Wednesday of the next week. I was having a persistent cough that was pretty nagging and I went back into the ER because we were concerned that I might be getting some kind of issue with my lungs. It turned out that after they did the blood work, I had elevated levels that said I had another heart attack.”
Owings continued, “At that point, we found that the stent they had placed was occluded, it was blocked. They put me on a bunch of blood thinners and in December, I had another stent placed. They cleaned out the stent that I had and butted another one up to it. I haven't had any issues since that point.”
Since his heart attack, Mark at 51 years old, is still in the process of recovery and is back to work as a route manager for a linen supply company. “I was just starting to get back to life, and figuring out what I can and can't do at this point. I'm figuring out how my body has changed, especially with the medications I'm on. I've always been a rough and tumble person and I never had bruising or anything like that. Now with all the blood thinners I'm on, I just bruise all the time. It's pretty crazy.”
A few months after, the ambulance company, Metropolitan Emergency Medical Services, presented the Little Rock Rugby Club with the Phoenix Award, dedicated to first responders and bystanders who save someone’s life. Mack Hutchison, the Quality Manager for MEMS, said that less than 9% of people who have heart attacks outside of a medical facility survive. Mark attended the celebration and thanked and talked to all of his fellow ruggers and first responders.
“The recognition of cardiac arrest, early chest compressions, and the application of the AED (with shock advised and delivered) saved a 51-year-old man’s life.” Hutchison wrote. “These links in the chain of survival are unfortunately often weak, resulting in less than desirable outcomes. Many times, bystanders (even trained in CPR and AED use) are hesitant to step up and do what needs to be done. Your team did it and they did it well.”
According to the Mayo Clinic’s website, “A heart attack occurs when the flow of blood to the heart is blocked. The blockage is most often a buildup of fat, cholesterol, and other substances, which form a plaque in the arteries that feed the heart (coronary arteries)."
Common heart attack signs and symptoms include:
- Pressure, tightness, pain, or a squeezing or aching sensation in your chest or arms that may spread to your neck, jaw or back
- Nausea, indigestion, heartburn or abdominal pain
- Shortness of breath
- Cold sweat
- Fatigue
- Lightheadedness or sudden dizziness
If you see someone who's unconscious and you believe is having a heart attack, first call for emergency medical help. Then check if the person is breathing and has a pulse. If the person isn't breathing or you don't find a pulse, only then should you begin CPR to keep blood flowing.
- Push hard and fast on the person's chest in a fairly rapid rhythm — about 100 to 120 compressions a minute. (Think of the beat to the Bee Gees’ “Staying Alive”)
- If you haven't been trained in CPR, doctors recommend performing only chest compressions. If you have been trained in CPR, you can go on to opening the airway and rescue breathing.
Everyone involved in the incident has their takeaways and experience. “It’s overwhelming,” Little Rock head coach Donna Thomas said. “We hear the statistics that people don’t live. I was in the hospital when he met with the doctor two days later and he said ‘Mr. Owings, people don’t live from this heart attack. These are mortal. You’re not going to live from them unless you have it in a hospital setting and even then, your chances of survival are very slim.’'
“It makes me know that I’m with my people,” Thomas continued. “There is no other community I want to be a part of than the rugby community. The Little Rock rugby community is like none other. It’s such a tight-knit community. Everybody who needed to react did. It was amazing to see and be a part of, but scary. All of the emotions you get when somebody is literally dead in front of you.”
Tisdale, who had an offer to play for Lindenwood University but had to turn it down because he couldn’t afford to go to college, said, “It just shows how close we are as a family and how amazing rugby is as a sport. Two teams that are that different and from completely different places can, at the drop of a pen, just work together that well.'
“That’s why in rugby you have to be able to communicate as well as you do, because crazy situations happen all the time and you've got to know what to do and how to communicate. It shows me how different rugby is from football. Growing up, football was distilled with hatred as a kid and then I started playing rugby, everybody cares about each other. You smash each other all day but then you sit down to eat and laugh with them after the game. It shows the camaraderie of the sport and how everybody's there for everybody. It's not a selfish me game, it’s a team effort.”
Tisdale shipped out to basic training with the Marines at the end of January but was able to talk to Mark before he left. He hopes to pursue his dream of playing for the USA Eagles through the military.
While Mark will not say he is officially retired, he is back to coaching at Springfield for its upcoming spring season. “Every club should have the basic training (CPR) and if at all possible, the machinery (AED) to make sure that these stories have the positive ending and outcome that mine did. The rugby community should take away from this that yes, it can happen to you."
Owing continued, "I got to find out first-hand what club should have available to them, especially clubs like Little Rock and like my club that have facilities. We found out last fall that we needed to have an AED machine and we're in the process of taking care of that. I'm just thankful I was where I was. Anywhere else, I wouldn't be alive. Basic CPR was a good start and with the AED machine, it was the winning combination,”. Owing concluded, “It's pretty crazy especially after how young they were and how they stepped up and just did it. It’s good to see that there are people that that will step in and do what's necessary to help somebody out.”
And that’s what ultimately the sport of rugby is: It’s battling each other on the pitch, then helping and celebrating with each other off. If just some of us can follow the example set by those who responded to the emergency on that October day, rugby and our community will be better for it.
A day after the incident, Springfield sent out a simple message: “Check on your mates and make sure they’re okay at all times. We are family and we’re all in this together. Let someone know right away if you’re not feeling right and don’t take it lightly. Life is fragile and we can forget that sometimes.”
