Parent, trainer save Schaumburg softball coach’s life with CPR, AED

When Chris Keller got an urgent phone call from his mother Monday night he thought his pregnant sister was about to give birth to her first child.

Instead, he learned that his 63-year-old father, Rich Keller, had been rushed to the hospital after an apparent cardiac arrest.

The elder Keller was volunteering as an assistant coach for the Schaumburg High School freshmen girls softball team when he collapsed near third base toward the end of the game.

Thanks to a parent who knew CPR and acted quickly to use it, and an athletic trainer who could operate a defibrillator, Rich Keller is now in stable condition and recovering at St. Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates.

Chris Keller said what Joe Boshold and Kelly Wika did was “amazing.”

“Every doctor we’ve seen has commented on what a great job they did and how amazing the results are,” Chris Keller said. “They can’t even tell that his heart was shocked, yet alone stopped.”

Boshold, a parent of one of the players, ran over to Keller on the ground and saw he was unresponsive. He began administering CPR.

“I did what I was trained to do,” Boshold said, adding he learned CPR at work when he joined the company’s health and safety team. “I never thought I’d have to use it, but I’m glad I knew it.”

As Boshold pumped Keller’s chest, Wika, a Schaumburg High School athletic trainer, ran to get an automated external defibrillator from a softball field about 60 paces away.

When she ran back, Keller still had no pulse. After a few tries with the defibrillator, the machine revived him just as Schaumburg paramedics were arriving to take over.

“I don’t remember anything,” Keller said Wednesday from his hospital room, adding doctors are still trying to determine what happened.

“I’m just unbelievably thankful,” he added, saying he’s grateful he had the attack with people around. “It would have been so easy for something like that to take place with me being alone.”

Keller’s wife, Kandy, said the doctors told her the CPR and the AED saved her husband’s life.

“I was just thankful that everybody was in the places that they were to get him to the hospital,” she said. “We’re just so grateful. We could never repay this man (Boshold) for what he did.”

Boshold waves off the notion he is a hero.

“It has nothing to do with me,” he said, adding that Keller wouldn’t be alive without Wika, another parent who called 911 and others who alerted him to Keller’s condition. “I’m so glad he’s going to be all right and I’m so glad he that he’ll be able to see the grandbaby.”

Brittany Moll, Keller’s daughter, is a coach for the softball team — in fact, her father was scheduled to take over coaching for her after she gives birth.

Keller said he has gotten get-well posters and cards from the softball team along with numerous visits from people at the school.

“When he read the cards you could see tears coming down his face,” Kandy said, adding that someone had sent him a teddy bear with a Schaumburg High School logo on it that he has kept in the hospital bed with him. “It really meant a lot.”

Schaumburg High School Principal Timothy Little said he is very pleased with how the situation was handled.

“We absolutely got this one right,” he said, adding that the AED machine was one of two available outside the building. “It’s just incredible. We’re so grateful that he made it through.”

Kandy said she hopes the story of how her husband’s life was saved will serve as a “good advertisement” that will encourage others to learn CPR and how to use an AED.

Keller was scheduled to move out of the intensive care unit Wednesday night, and Boshold was planning to visit him for the first time.

Since Monday, Boshold said he spoke with the mother of another girl on the team who said she felt helpless when she saw Keller fall. He encouraged her and others to look online for nearby CPR classes through the Red Cross or their villages.

“If it’s offered to you definitely take it,” he said. “Don’t think it’s a waste of time because it’s not. You should know what to do in an emergency.”