No one can ever accuse Steve Huston of being a heartless banker.
Huston, the owner of Bankwest Financial in Rockford, Minn., resuscitated Dr. Frank Anderson during a pickup basketball game in January, a local Fox News affiliate
Anderson, 32, a family physician, collapsed to the floor during the game.
"I turned around and Frank was falling backwards and hit his head pretty hard on the floor," Huston told American Banker in an interview Monday.
Huston, who is married to a registered nurse, ran and grabbed a nearby automated external defibrillator, giving Anderson the shock of electricity that restarted his heart.
"I've been told by some medical professionals who said if we had just done CPR and not had the AED available, Frank might not be living today. Or if he was, there would likely be some kind of permanent effects of this," Huston says.
In a dramatic twist usually reserved for a Lifetime movie, Huston knew about the AED because the bank had donated it in 2005 to the elementary school where the pickup games are played. The bank donated nine additional AEDs throughout the community as part of a program called Heart Safe Communities.
Huston had been trained in how to use the device through his work with a local community health foundation.
"The ironic thing is, you just kind of kick in and do what you need to do," Huston says of using the machine on Anderson.
Anderson later learned that he has a rare heart condition called
"It reenergizes our interest in the program here at the bank, and I would anticipate that we'll consider additional donations" of the AED devices, he adds. "More importantly, we'll consider anything we can do to promote the use of AEDs and placement of AEDs throughout the banking community."
Huston, who calls himself a "man of faith," says he doesn't think the event was a coincidence and instead speaks to a higher power.
"The great thing is that Frank is a young husband and father, and he's got three daughters and a wife that has a husband today because of this," he adds.
