It started as an ordinary bike ride.
Several members of the Hawkeye Bicycle Association met July 13 at Greene Square in Cedar Rapids. They planned to ride the Sutliff Loop. Lynda Ficken Haddy started the trip near the front of the pack, but later fell back, joining Terry Whaley and Jim McLaughlin.
She thinks about that decision often.
“I was in the right place at the right time,” Haddy says.
The three were several miles from Lisbon when Jim reported feeling dizzy. They rested a few minutes, then got back on their bikes. A few minutes later, McLaughlin decided he wasn’t going to finish. He called his wife for a ride, then collapsed.
Haddy’s years of CPR training kicked in, and she immediately started compressions. Whaley used his cellphone to call 911, then picked up McLaughlin’s dropped phone. He stayed on the line with McLaughlin’s wife as Haddy continued CPR.
“I think it’s one of those things that stays burned in your brain,” Whaley says. “You don’t have time to think — you just react.”