Mar 18, 2015 4 min read

BURGETTSTOWN – Stanley Mozina’s sterling record for church attendance earned him more than just a seat in the front pew. It also saved his life.

When Mozina, 61, of Burgettstown, went into cardiac arrest on a Sunday morning last month, his fellow parishioners at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church got his heart pumping again after performing nearly five minutes of cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

“If I would have been at home that day and that had happened, I wouldn’t be here talking to you right now,” Mozina said, explaining he has lived alone since his wife died in 2013.

Mozina, a former Catholic school administrator, recovered and returned to church the following Sunday. At his request, parishioners are raising funds to purchase two defibrillators for the church and social hall, and they just hit their halfway mark of about $2,000.

Defibrillators emit an electrical shock and are easy to use without any formal training. But there were no defibrillators nearby Feb. 1 when Mozina went into cardiac arrest, and his implanted pacemaker didn’t function because his heart showed no warning signs of an irregular rhythm before it stopped beating.

Jean Zahn, a retired nurse, was sitting next to Mozina in the front pew that morning. Zahn, Mozina and Judy Kramer were the Eucharistic ministers that day.

“I kind of looked over at Stanley, and he didn’t look right, then all of a sudden his head went back,” said Zahn, 61, of Cherry Valley.

She and Kramer, an orthodontic assistant by trade, laid him on the pew and started performing CPR when they noticed he had no pulse and was turning blue. Chris Matalik, who is also a nurse, helped the two women as they spent the next four-and-a-half minutes performing 300 compressions and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Meanwhile, parishioners in the church began to pray, and the Rev. George Moneck performed Mozina’s last rites. But as soon as the parishioners finished praying, Mozina opened his eyes and said, “Thank you, Judy” to Kramer, who happened to be the first person he saw.

“They all said ‘Amen,’ and literally his eyes started to flicker, and we all said, ‘He’s alive! He’s OK,'” Zahn said. “It was just sort of like a miracle.”

“It was the first time that has ever happened to me as a priest in over 25 years,” Moneck said.

Paramedics arrived at that point, and Mozina was taken to Allegheny General Hospital’s suburban campus in Bellevue, where he spent the next few days recovering. He also was treated for a fractured sternum and ribs from the compressions.

“Unfortunately, that’s one of the things about CPR, but it does save your life,” Mozina said.

Due to the decline in his health, Mozina was bumped up a category on a national organ transplant waiting list. He has a family history of heart problems and had his first heart attack at age 34. At 39, he had two heart attacks in a month and was rushed into open heart surgery. He said he was fine for about 10 years, but started having complications due to the scar tissue and previous damage to his heart. He then had a pacemaker implanted to correct irregular heartbeats, and he said it has provided electrical shocks on more than a dozen occasions.

He said he is looking forward to leading a normal life again once he gets a new heart. He cannot drive and has been on sick leave from his job as associate director of operations for the Ramada hotel in Washington since 2012. Many in the community know him from when he taught and later served as principal at Our Lady of Lourdes school. He also served as principal at schools affiliated with St. Titus Parish in Aliquippa, St. Hilary Parish in Washington and St. Patrick Parish in Canonsburg.

“I think I’ve been sick for so long, I don’t know what it means to feel good anymore,” he said. “That’s the problem.”

Mozina said he is thankful for the quick thinking of his fellow parishioners, and he paid it forward by donating $500 to the defibrillator fundraiser. Anyone wishing to make a donation can mail a check payable to Our Lady of Lourdes at 621 S. Main St., Burgettstown, PA. 15021. Checks should have “defibrillator” in the memo line.