John Jaros, a manager at the Boulder Safeway grocery store, is grateful for the lifesaving care provided by Boulder police officers Striegel and Hadley, who were the first to arrive on the scene when 53-year-old Jaros was unconscious on the night of December 8, 2024. “I had a heart attack,” Jaros told the Longmont Leader. “I stopped breathing and my pulse stopped for minutes. I was clinically dead for five to eight minutes.”
The department received a call about an unconscious man at Safeway who wasn’t breathing on December 8. Officer Hadley wasn’t originally assigned to the call, but he was just down the street. He was the first to arrive on the scene. Officer Hadley had only been patrolling by himself for about two weeks at the time.
“We’re trained and ready, but it’s not a usual occurrence for us,” Officer Hadley told the Longmont Leader. “For me, I was the first one on the scene. Training took hold. I just kind of fell back on training and went straight to CPR. Obviously there’s going to be some nerves. This was also probably like week two for me out on my own. There’s so many nerves, but a lot of the stuff in this job, you train a lot. A lot of it is falling back on training.”
Body cam footage shared by the Boulder Police Department on Facebook shows the moment when Officer Striegel walks into the Safeway while Officer Hadley is giving CPR to Jaros. Striegel asked to take over and continued CPR on Jaros. The two officers provided life-saving care to Jaros in the three to four minutes before the fire department and American Medical Response (AMR) arrived on the scene.
“They obviously have a lot more specialized medical equipment than we do,” Officer Striegel said. “We carry an AED and a med bag, but we don’t carry a defibrillator or any ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support) or advanced cardiac life support drugs. They’re able to handle the more advanced medical aspects than we are once they arrive on scene.”
Officer Striegel followed the ambulance to the hospital and asked to hear back regarding any updates on John’s health. The officers said they typically don’t hear back from people after incidents like this occur and they didn’t receive an update on John’s condition until he reached out to the department.
Jaros reached out to the BPD, but the only information he had was that a woman officer gave him CPR on the night of his near-death experience. He left a voice message for the two women officers on-call that evening and they figured out that it was Officer Striegel who was dispatched to the Safeway that night. He said he wanted to let the officers know that they saved his life. “I’m so grateful,” Jaros said. “I could never repay. It was very emotional and it was hard too, because I don’t remember a lot.”
Jaros said he doesn’t remember anything from the night of his heart attack and his first memory is waking up in the hospital about five days later. “They had cooled my body down and they had to raise it up two degrees every hour so it wouldn’t go into shock,” Jaros said. “I believe I was in an induced coma.”
Jaros spent about a month in the hospital and went to an inpatient rehab facility, which is the same facility where his wife lives since she experienced a stroke two years ago on the fourth of July. After completing his rehabilitation and confirming the installed pacemaker is working correctly, Jaros quickly recovered and has experienced no negative long-term side effects following the incident.
The doctors told Jaros that he could live a long and healthy life and that he was good to go, as long as he could take care of himself. Jaros said he felt tired during the first couple of weeks after he went back to work, but his manager Natalie at Safeway was very supportive and allowed him to go home early when he was feeling tired. “Now I’m just going eight hours a day and I’m back to normal now,” Jaros said. “I just bought some new basketball shoes and all of this stuff to get my butt back in shape, better than I was before.”
In addition to the great work of the first responders, Jaros wanted to thank his union rep Erik for starting a GoFundMe to help him pay his rent while he was in the hospital. He also said his cousin Jeannine has been his power of attorney since his wife had a stroke two years ago. Jeannine made important decisions, did a lot of paperwork, and arranged for family to come visit Jaros in the hospital because doctors didn’t think he was going to survive.
Jaros said he is grateful for all of the people who helped him through this process. He is especially grateful to the first responders, Officers Striegel and Hadley, because he wouldn’t be here without them.
Officer Striegel said the experience of meeting John and seeing him doing well was life-changing. “Meeting John, I would say, is one of the most impactful experiences of my policing career so far,” Striegel said. “A lot of times that we get some pretty significant calls and unfortunately we don’t really hear about the outcome. And in this case, we didn’t know what his status was for about three months, so seeing him walk through the doors in the Safeway where we last saw him, seeing him alive and well was just a remarkable experience. It was wonderful seeing him smile and joking and walking around just telling his story.”
