OCEAN TOWNSHIP, N.J. -- As he describes it, Joe Kampf was born again on his birthday.
"I died," said Kampf, 59, recalling the late afternoon of June 10 when he collapsed in the pharmacy section of Wegmans in Ocean Township while shopping with his wife.
"But I didn't cross the line. They brought me back and stabilized me."
"They" are Wegmans staff members, a customer and Ocean Township police officers who came to his aid last week after he had a heart attack. And Kampf credits them as the reason he is alive today.
"If I hadn't had it in Wegmans, I wouldn't be talking to you right now," he said.
Kampf himself remembers little of the shopping trip. It was later in the afternoon on a Monday and he was standing next to his wife Wendy at the deli counter of Wegmans. Kampf decided to head to the pharmacy section while his wife waited for the meats to tick of the items on their list a little bit quicker.
The next thing Kampf remembers is waking up in Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune with a "huge noggin knocker" on his head and a sore side from what he can only suspect was the result of him hitting the floor.
What happened in the pharmacy section Kampf only knows because he was told after by the people who saved his life, including one, Danielle "Dani" Pappas, who he calls "my angel."
Wegmans employees found Kampf in distress, store manager John Zammetti said.
One immediately called police. Anthony Kelly, a store pharmacist, responded to Kampf.
Pappas, the store's safety and simplification coordinator, was in a meeting with other store managers, who responded to the pharmacy, Zammetti said. But Pappas, also a volunteer emergency medical technician, ran ahead to help Kelly with CPR along with Mark Goldberg, a customer shopping that day who is also an EMT.
Wegmans is equipped with portal defibrillators located throughout the store, and the managers are all trained to use them, Zammetti said. But Ocean Township Police officers Randy Slawsky and Greg Martone as well as sergeants Paul Flammia and Greg Schenck had already responded with their portable defibrillator, which they used on Kampf.
"The police were there instantly," Zammetti said.
Ocean Township Police Chief Steven Peters credited not only his officers, but the store's staff and Goldberg for the quick response.
"It was a team effort. I couldn't be more proud as a chief of police," he said. "These are the kind of success stories.
Kampf was taken to Jersey Shore, where he said doctors found a clot in an artery, which they cleared, and placed a stent.
"The clot was the culprit. That stopped my heart," Kampf said. "Fortunately, they had a good doctor on call."
Kampf spent four days in the hospital, where Goldberg and two of the officers visited him. "That was above and beyond the call of duty," he said.
This is the part of the story where Kampf starts to choke up telling it. As soon as he was strong enough, about a week after his collapse, Kampf and his wife went back to Wegmans to seek out Pappas and Kelly.
It wasn't the first rescue for Pappas, who was featured in the Asbury Park Press in 2007 for reviving an 86-year-old woman who suffered a heart attack, also in Wegmans.
Pappas said that somehow this time felt different reviving Kampf.
"This time, it feels almost like an aura came through," she said. "I feel forever bonded with him."
If reviving him after heart failure wasn't enough, Zammetti, the store manager, sent dinner to the Kampfs the day after the store visit. Kampf said he and his wife were greeted at their door with lobster, crab legs, corn on the cob, potatoes, salad, a bouquet of flowers and a fruit basket.
Zammetti said he was just grateful to the Kampfs for coming back to the store to meet with his staff, who he said was "emotionally shaken" by the incident.
"I just thought it was the right thing to do," he said. "It was very kindhearted of them to come over. It really energized our folks to see him and know he's OK."
Kampf said he's proud to be an Ocean Township resident and that the police department, the Wegmans staff and all involved should be too.
And don't feel bad for him about having a rough go of his 59th birthday.
"It wasn't a crappy birthday present," he said. "It was one of the best I ever had."
Copyright 2013 - Asbury Park Press, N.J.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
