When an Iowa lawman collapsed at FBI Academy, Lodi Police Lt. Steve Carillo did not hesitate

It was a typical November day in Virginia. Fall was in full swing and the days were getting chilly.

As Lodi Police Lt. Steve Carillo recalls, it was cold enough that Wednesday morning to need gloves while out on a 5.2-mile run at the FBI National Academy.

But the weather would soon be the last thing on his mind when Carillo saw a crowd of people gathering around a man lying motionless on the ground. The man was on his side, and there was no sign of life.

In Carillo's typical fast-moving fashion, he was soon at the man's side, feeling for a pulse and rolling him onto his back.

There was no pulse.

The man lying on the ground was about to leave his wife without a husband, his two children without a father.

He had gone into full cardiac arrest.

Over the years, Carillo has performed CPR on about 18 people. Only two had lived — an elderly woman in the mid 1980s and a 2-year-old who wasn't breathing after a fire, also many years earlier.

Now this man on the ground, Kirk Nielsen, would either be the third person Carillo had saved, or another one for whom CPR just wasn't enough.

A family man and law enforcement officer

Nielsen, special agent in charge at the Iowa Department of Public Safety, was one of about 260 law enforcement officers attending an 11-week session of the FBI's academy. Family had always been important for Nielsen, who lives in a town outside Sioux City, Iowa. When he's not working, he's going to his high school-aged son's basketball games, shopping for Christmas presents with his college-age daughter or going for runs with his wife.

Most days he and his wife would run together for about three or four miles.

He had to leave them for the FBI training in Virginia, though job travel is something to which Nielsen grew accustomed to over his 22 years in law enforcement.

Over the years, Nielsen has worked undercover in drug cases and has investigated a number of murder cases, including one that took him to Sacramento in the early 1990s.

His department has its employees take regular physicals, and less than a year ago, at age 45, Nielsen's results showed that he had the physical body of a 40-year-old male.

Nielsen's odds of developing heart disease in the next 10 years were placed at 1 percent.

'He's not breathing! He's not breathing!'

That day in the rolling hills of Virginia, Nielsen's heart had completely stopped.

Carillo had just finished the morning's run, which started on a track, wound through some woods, then ended at the track.

He was walking to cool down when he noticed a crowd gathering and saw the man lying on the ground.

A New York State Police lieutenant was saying, "He's not breathing! He's not breathing!" Carillo said.

Carillo rolled the man over onto his back and started chest compressions while the lieutenant began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Two other people ran for an automated external defibrillator, a portable version of the electric paddles seen on TV medical shows.

One man charged the paddles and then handed them to Carillo.

Quietly taking charge

Carillo had never used a defibrillator before. Still, it's really not surprising that, of all the people gathered there that day on the track, Carillo was the one holding the paddles.

The 45-year-old SWAT team member tends to go full-force into situations. He then subtly takes charge, whether it's handling a fatal collision, handling a police dog or working traffic control by motorcycle.

He got his start in the profession in 1981, when he began volunteering with what was then the city of Marina's Department of Public Safety, which combined police and fire.

He started as a paramedic — training that would strengthen his tendency to act instinctively. Most people feel a calling to law enforcement work, and Carillo is obviously one of them, said Tom Ostrosky, supervisory special agent at the FBI's national academy.

"Although he's somewhat quiet and reserved, he's the kind of guy you want around in an emergency," he said.

Carillo came to Lodi in 1991 and has since worked a number of assignments before he was promoted to lieutenant in February. Now he's more frequently found in the watch commander's office. There he handles calls from the public and reads countless officers' reports, all of which must be approved and sometimes sent back for more follow-up.

But he's still an active guy and often jumps from his rolling chair to go handle a patrol call.

Like Nielsen, Carillo is a family man who makes time for his wife and two sons.

On a hill nearby, they knelt and prayed

When Carillo placed the paddles on Nielsen's chest, it wasn't what he'd expected when he headed across the country to the academy.

The program is generally attended by those in higher-ranking positions, including some from Lodi.

While there, attendees take courses in leadership, training and some specialized classes such as combating anti-terrorism.

Carillo knelt on Nielsen's right side, set the paddles on his chest and told a Vermont state trooper to push the button to activate them.

It worked.

Nielsen's heart restarted. His body was in shock and he became combative, so Carillo and others held him down until an ambulance arrived.

Most of the 260 attendees were there, staying out of the way on a grassy hill since they couldn't do anything.

Carillo clearly recalls looking to his left and seeing all those cops.

They were all kneeling, many praying.

'We lost you there'

An ambulance took Nielsen to a hospital in nearby Fredericksburg.

The next morning, around 8:45, Nielsen woke up. He was hungry. He had no idea what had happened 22 hours earlier.

"I looked at the doctor and said, 'What happened?' He said, 'Well, we lost you there,'" Nielsen said by phone from his Iowa home.

Then the doctor asked if he wanted some visitors.

"I said sure, and expected Steve and some others. Then my wife and two kids walked in, and I knew something was going on," he said.

Only then did he learn that something so drastic had happened that his family flew in from Iowa.

All Nielsen remembers is running about a 9-minute-mile pace, which wasn't too taxing, and coming within sight of the finish line clock. He felt so good that he decided to sprint the last little bit, as runners usually do so they can "finish strong."

Nielsen doesn't remember falling to the ground. He doesn't remember feeling anything wrong in his chest.

"It's the most humbling experience," he said more than once. "One minute you're on top of the world at the FBI academy, and the next minute they tell you that you died."

Recovery — and gratitude

Nielsen flew home to Iowa two days after his heart attack — "sudden cardiac arrest" is the medical term — and then underwent quadruple bypass heart surgery on Dec. 1.

Unlike many cases in which the arteries are clogged and corroded, Nielsen's arteries each had one small blockage in the same spot, almost like a blood clot.

Nielsen, who has never before needed any kind of medication, is now taking pills to lower his cholesterol and blood pressure even further than average.

"Every day I get more energy," he said. "The goal was to walk 30 minutes at six weeks; well, I did 40 minutes the first day."

Nielsen called Carillo the day before Thanksgiving to express his gratitude.

"What do you say? 'Thank you' is what you say to somebody who opens the door for you. This person saved my life," Nielsen said.

At a surprise ceremony at the end of the FBI academy, Iowa's public safety department honored Carillo and the several others who helped save Nielsen's life.

The wooden plaque, bearing an Iowa seal and words of gratitude, now hangs above Carillo's desk. He didn't expect it, and he emphasized that it was a team effort.

"That plaque kind of made me feel funny," Carillo said.

"I didn't do anything special."

Contact reporter Layla Bohm at layla@lodinews.com.