Theo Konidas

On a sunny New Year’s Day, teenager Theo Konidas fired up his snowmobile for one last ride with his older brother and sister before heading home from the family cabin in Pigeon Lake, Alta.

Their dad Lee stayed behind, but a sense of unease soon crept in.

“For some reason, something kept drawing me to go and check on the kids,” he said. “So, I casually went out there, and that’s when all the craziness started.”

He approached a white stubble field where he’d last heard snowmobiles.

“First thing I saw was both the older kids, Lizzie and Yianni, standing up and screaming,” said Lee. “And then I saw one of the sleds had flown into the trees.”

Theo lay nearby. His siblings had removed his helmet, revealing his face turning blue.

Lee rushed to him through the deep snow, called 911, and ordered Lizzie to fetch their mom, Korin.

“I sent Yianni to the road so he wouldn’t see his brother die.”

Guided by the 911 operator, Lee began chest compressions and rescue breathing.

“The first big breath I put into him, I saw his lungs fill up, and I figured his lungs had collapsed.”

Korin arrived moments later, fearing the worst.

“When I first got there, I fell apart because I did think that my child had died already,” she said.

But with calm encouragement from the 911 operator, she stepped in to help.

“I could see my other two children crying, and I thought, ‘I can do this. We can do this.’ And everything just kind of faded away. So, it was just Lee and myself working on Theo.”

Soon, local emergency services arrived and set to work.

“When the 911 lady said to me that STARS was coming, I thought, ‘Okay, we might have a chance here,’” Lee recalled.

STARS captains Tom Sliepen and Ken Ryniak piloted the helicopter over a row of trees next to the field.

“When kids are involved,” said Tom, “you can get chills on a mission as soon as you’re on approach and you see some of the scene unfold.

“From this mission, I remember coming over the tree line and seeing one of the snowmobiles… and then the scene with Theo himself. I remember it quite distinctly, that chill coming over me.

“But I always make sure I compose myself so I can do my job properly, keep the helicopter safe, keep the crew safe, and get the patient back to the hospital as fast as possible.”

It had been a brief flight from the Edmonton STARS base. The crew had launched immediately upon receiving the call since the helicopter was already loaded and running on the tarmac, moments from lifting for a different mission.

Dr. Eddie Chang, medical director for STARS in Edmonton, had diverted the crew, knowing that a young patient actively receiving chest compressions posed the greatest need.

“Theo was turning blue because he wasn’t breathing and his heart probably was not beating,” he said. “Without oxygen and blood flow going to the brain, the brain suffers from injury that will be irreversible, and within 10 minutes the brain will die and suffer from significant injury that is not recoverable.

Flight nurse Marla Tabler remembered seeing the call details: a teenager in cardiac arrest.

“Any time you’re dispatched to a pediatric patient, it tugs at your heartstrings,” she said. “No one wants to see kids get hurt.

“As we circled before landing, I remember looking out the window and seeing the BLS (basic life support) crew doing CPR. When we got to Theo, he was blue. He wasn’t breathing.

“We had a lot of things that we had to do really quickly to try and begin the process of stabilizing him. It’s probably the most serious situation that you can be in when you have a teenager who’s not breathing in front of you.”

The team’s top priority was intubation — taking over Theo’s breathing.  An ultrasound confirmed a collapsed lung and internal bleeding. Meanwhile, his dangerously low blood pressure continued to drop.

“Time was of the essence in all of his interventions,” said Marla. “It was competing priorities just trying to get all of them done and to try and get him somewhat stable before we transported him.”

During the 18-minute flight to the Stollery Children’s Hospital, the STARS air medical crew performed a blood transfusion and worked tirelessly to maintain his breathing and blood pressure.

“The entire call, we were fighting to keep him alive,” said Marla.

But Theo made it. He arrived at the urgent care he needed and was soon on his way to a full recovery.

Marla said success started with his parents’ CPR efforts in the beginning.

“The interventions that his family did were absolutely what kept him alive and allowed us to intervene and do those other critical things,” she said. “Had his family not been there, and had he not had the interventions that he had prior to our arrival, I think, with his injuries there’s no way he would have survived.”

Theo later noted, “I didn’t even know that my parents knew how to do CPR. I’m just so grateful that they had the skills and the ability to help me when I really needed it most.”

Theo is now a thriving high schooler who plays elite-level soccer. He also dedicates much of his time to significantly fundraising and building awareness for STARS, and he’s encouraged by his family every step of the way.

“We originally said that he wanted to raise $10,000,” said Lee. “And I said, ‘I think we can do better than $10,000; we can raise $100,000.’ And [now] he’s almost at $100,000, and he doesn’t know it yet, but I’m going to tell him to raise it to $250,000. So, you know, he gives back.”

Theo is proud to do so.

“I wouldn’t be here without [STARS],” he said. “Just thinking about that and how it would have affected my parents and my family and everybody around me just really cuts deep in how thankful I am that they were there.”