COMANCHE — Only one thought entered Steve Bolton’s mind as he saw his life flash before his eyes.
“Lord, take me,” Bolton recalled thinking while suffering a heart attack on Barnett Field at Comanche High School during a preseason team photoshoot. “I’m ready to go. But if you could just let me watch my grandbabies grow up, I’d love to see that.”
That’s the last thing the longtime Comanche Times publisher and editor remembers from his darkest hour on Aug. 11 before falling unconscious.
Last month, Steve saw his wish come true as the 59-year-old journalist and his wife Kelli welcomed their first grandchild, Cole Bennett, who was born at Comanche County Memorial Hospital to their daughter, Veronica.
“That first touch when he grabbed my finger was amazing,” said a teary-eyed and grateful Steve Bolton. “That experience was one in a million.”
It’s an experience he wouldn’t have gotten to appreciate had two Comanche assistant football coaches not valiantly jumped into action and saved his life by performing CPR with only a pocket mask, an AED (automatic external defibrillator) and their faith.
On Friday afternoon in the Comanche High School gymnasium — at a schoolwide pep rally ahead of the Indians’ homecoming game — Montie Blair and Casy Rowell were honored with the American Heart Association’s Heartsaver Hero Award for their heroic actions.
“Saving the life is the real reward,” Blair said. “I give credit to God for everything because He is the final say so. He just put us in the right position for Steve at the right time.”
After reviving Bolton — the heartbeat of the Comanche community since 1992 — the one thing that stuck out to Rowell was Bolton’s strong faith.
“Everyone was telling us that this was a miracle and this doesn’t just happen,” Rowell said. “We were all there for a reason. It really was a cool faith moment.”
Had Bolton not been immediately accessible to those who were CPR-certified, he knows he likely wouldn’t have lived due to response time.
“Being in a rural area, I wouldn’t be here if it had happened anywhere else,” Bolton said.
Outside of populated areas like Lawton, Oklahoma City and Tulsa, response time is even more critical. According to the American Heart Association, Oklahoma has the fourth-highest number of cardiovascular-related deaths per capita across the country.
“It was perfect timing,” said the presenter of the Heartsaver Hero Award, Steven Embree, who is the Director of Communications for AHA’s Oklahoma division. “If you have laborers there who can start CPR, you can double or triple a person’s chances of surviving. That’s vital.”
The AHA hopes that miraculous stories like Bolton’s will stress the importance of CPR and access to AEDs to help save lives.
It has at Comanche, where the school bought two additional AED’s — one to put in the fieldhouse and one in the gym — the Monday following Bolton’s heart attack.
“The Heartsaver Hero award is a huge deal and they deserve all the recognition,” Embree said. “At the same time, it’s an opportunity for us (the AHA) to get in front of people and stress the importance of CPR training.”
‘It was like living a nightmare…’ when time stood still
Being a volunteer firefighter and a former EMT, Montie Blair always comes prepared.
For eight years, Blair has kept a CPR pocket mask in his truck. Little did he know that such a tiny piece of equipment would come in so handy.
Individual pictures had been taken on Aug. 11 and it was time for the last picture of the day — a team shot of the Indians.
All of a sudden, Bolton began gasping for air and grabbed his inhaler.
Initially, coaches thought it was an asthma attack. That was until Bolton fell straight to his knees while calling his wife, Kelli — co-editor of the Times — over to him.
“It was like living a nightmare with everything else going around me that I couldn’t see,” Kelli Bolton said.
Bolton, telling Blair his chest was in excruciating pain, was fading fast.
“Somebody go find an AED… now!” screamed out Blair.
While Comanche head coach Brad Perry and several players scrambled to find the AED in the elementary school nearby, Blair began doing compressions while Rowell did breaths with the pocket mask.
Roughly seven minutes later, the AED arrived as they went back and forth between shocks and CPR.
“Come on Steve,” prayed Kelli. “Come on back.”
After the first shock, Blair and Rowell did CPR for another five minutes before shocking Bolton a second time.
“It wasn’t looking good at first but what are you going to do?” asked Rowell. “Stop? We were gonna keep going until the first responders got there and told us to stop. Until then, we keep going.”
Two to three minutes later worth of CPR following the second shock, Bolton finally got a breath.
Roughly 20 minutes after his collapse, first responders finally arrived on the scene and transported Bolton in an ambulance to Memorial Hospital where he recovered and praised the doctors for being “awesome” and “unreal.”
Summing up how Bolton’s life was saved, both Blair and Rowell chose the phrase, “Thank the Lord.”
Blair has been a volunteer firefighter for 18 years so he’s dealt with his fair share of life-and- death scenarios both with heart attacks and car wrecks. Back in 2004, he brought a man back to life.
It was then Blair realized you can’t worry about the what-ifs.
“Tune stuff out and don’t think about whether he’s gonna make it or not,” Blair said. “It’s all about focusing on what you’re trained to do.”
The harrowing experience has galvanized the players while teaching them a valuable lesson to never give up. Despite losing its homecoming game to Davis, 38-6, on Friday, the 2-5 Indians have already exceeded last year’s win total.
“We preach to our guys to never quit. Football is just a fun sport, but we got put in a situation where if you quit, a man dies,” Rowell said. “When you’re prepared, you can get things done with a never quit attitude.”
Angels among us
Alabama’s hit classic “Angels Among Us” constantly plays in Steve Bolton’s head these days.
There’s a line in the song — “they (angels) come to you and me in our darkest hours” — that sticks with Bolton. So do the lyrics, “They wear so many faces, show up in the strangest places and grace us with their mercies in our time of need.”
“I think of that every time and start crying,” Bolton said.
Bolton and one of his angels, Blair, go way back. Blair played on the Comanche football team in the 90s and still has clippings from Bolton’s articles.
“Steve is such a valuable asset to our community,” Blair said. “And he doesn’t miss anything. He’s dedicated to his job and he’s an all-around great person.”
When Blair and Rowell first visited Bolton in the hospital, it was an emotional embrace.
“It still makes me want to cry now,” said a misty-eyed Blair at the pep rally. “I still get shook up at times about it.”
Now whenever Bolton sees his two angels, tears fill his eyes.
“I cry every time I see them,” Bolton said. “That wasn’t the case before.”
There were also angels off the field.
“All of Comanche was praying,” Bolton said. “Even the ones who weren’t physically there, they were a big part of it, too.”
Comanche’s prayers — as well as Bolton’s — were answered that miraculous August day and now the heartbeat of the community lives on.
“Steve impacts a lot of people and is a big part of this community,” Rowell said. “It just happened to be a really good guy we were saving, too.”
Blair and Rowell showed Steve Bolton and the rest of Oklahoma that there really are angels among us.
**Editor’s Note: Sadly, Steve Bolton passed away from a second heart attack later in October, less than two months after Blair and Rowell saved his life and less than a week after the Comanche coaches were honored with the Heartsaver Hero Award. Comanche and the rest of Southwest Oklahoma will always remember you, Steve.