Man, 89, survives
2 hours on icy ground
Staff writer
Curtis Maag spent more than two hours on the ground in Sunday’s freezing temperatures and was found, unconscious, by a deputy about 6:30 p.m.
The 89-year-old had Stage Two hypothermia and high levels of cardiac enzymes in his blood when he reached St. Luke Hospital. His body temperature was 90 degrees.
After being called to the residence because Maag was reported missing, deputy Jesse Raney found him near the door of a barn and got him inside the house and into a chair.
Raney roused Maag enough to ask whether he could walk inside, and Maag said he could walk if Raney could help him.
Alerted by Maag’s sister that he was missing in the cold, Maag’s daughter-in-law, Pam, and son, Roger, hurried to Curtis’ home, arriving just after the deputy got him inside the house.
Pam, a former paramedic, got his wet clothes off him with help from Raney and deputy Clayton Philpott, then applied warm, wet towels to his armpits and crotch to start bringing his temperature up.
Her 15 years of working as a paramedic kicked in and she started telling people what to do, Pam said.
When ambulance personnel arrived, the group loaded Curtis into a carry bag and placed him on the back of Roger’s flatbed truck.
A deputy and a medic rode on the back of the truck and Roger drove the truck to where the ambulance was parked so Curtis could be loaded into it.
Pam said an ambulance supervisor who arrived before the ambulance told her she’d done things exactly as he would have done.
Nurses at St. Luke Hospital said they had expected Maag would not make it to the hospital.
He’d had a triple heart bypass 17 years ago.
“In July he had to have a pacemaker put in, and he’s not been the same since,” Pam said.
Her father-in-law has fallen four times in the past.
It’s suspected that Curtis’ heartbeat dropped too low, causing him to go down in the cold after feeding horses at 4 p.m.
Roger said he was thankful for the professionalism emergency responders showed that night.
“I was so impressed with the two deputies that were out there and EMS in general,” he said.
He noted the hospital had all the equipment needed to take care of getting his father’s body temperature back up to normal.
Physicians at St. Luke attempted to get him transferred to a larger hospital but could not find one because of staff shortages.
He was dismissed Tuesday into Pam and Roger’s care and is back home.
An appointment was set up with a cardiologist, but since that appointment is several weeks away, Pam said the family would try to get him seen sooner by a different cardiologist.
Meanwhile, he already has an appointment next week with his primary care physician in Newton.
Before Sunday’s incident, Curtis staunchly refused to move off the farm, where he kept his horses, Pam said. Now he’s changed his mind.
“He’s ready for assisted living now,” Pam said.