GILBERT, AZ — Kevin Mohatt wears a lot of hats. First and foremost, he’s a husband, father, and grandfather.
At 59 years old, he still straps on skates to play hockey just a couple of miles from his Gilbert home. Upstairs in his home, he dedicated a room to songwriting on a Fender or Gibson guitar.
For his day job he's a real estate agent in a seller’s market.
On Valentine’s Day this year, after waking up to give the most important person in his life some flowers, he almost left her to be a widow.
That same day, Mohatt went to play hockey. After about an hour and a half on the ice, he said he started to feel more tired than usual.
“I got into the locker room, looked at my skates and I wished they’d come off of my feet on their own,” he said.
He started to make the short drive home to his house. When he reach Higley and Warner roads, he said he doesn’t remember anything beyond that.
“He was unresponsive, he wasn’t breathing,” said Gilbert Police Officer Sabrina Liban.
Liban and Jacob Delecki responded to the 911 call of a man having a seizure. They quickly discovered that it was from a massive heart attack. Between the two officers, they estimate they did a thousand compression to save Kevin’s life before paramedics arrived.
Officer Delecki said he started the week doing chest compression on someone in their mid-20s who didn’t make it. Then he ended his week saving Mohatt’s life with compressions.
“This is the first heart attack patient I’ve done CPR on in 15 years that has actually lived,” said Delecki.
Kevin says he remembers waking up in the hospital more sore than a rough night on the rink – but he was alive. He said his cardiologist later told him because he had recently recovered from COVID, the blood clot that caused his 'widow maker' heart attack could be COVID-related.
“Actually, I died, quite frankly. I was gone for at least three to four minutes,” said Mohatt.
Days before his near-death heart attack, Kevin was writing an original song called, ‘It’s about time.’
“This song, believe it or not, is about measuring your last moments,” he said.
The song isn’t yet recorded but soon will be. Mohatt is thankful he still gets to. So thankful, he even went back to Gilbert police and fire to show gratitude in person.
In addition to wearing that hockey helmet and a Stratocaster, he also wears a defibrillator - a reminder of how precious life really is.
“I have this clarity as to what really matters,” he said