Crime & Safety

Trio of Heroes Save Man's Life at Southridge Mall

A Greendale police detective, a mall security sergeant and a citizen helped save the life of 61-year-old Loreto Piczon, who suffered a heart attack while walking in the mall.

Since coming from California to Wisconsin to visit his daughter, Loreto Piczon had become a mall walker at Southridge, doing laps around the mall with dozens other before stores open.

One lap in late March was nearly Piczon’s last.

At approximately 9:45 a.m. March 30, Piczon, 61, suffered what should have been a life-taking heart attack.

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Should have been, had it not been for an alert and capable trio.

Mall security Sgt. Joel Rose was one of the first men to reach Piczon after a citizen dialed 911. He immediate began performing CPR by providing Piczon with emergency breathing. He was also quick to request an automated exterior defibrillator.

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Lawrence Shikes of Milwaukee saw what was going on and after finding another citizen to tend to his young son, he began to perform chest compressions. He continued those chest compressions until Greendale Det. Matthew Borkowski arrived and took them over.

The men shocked Piczon with the defibrillator and continued to care for him until Greendale paramedics arrived and stabilized him. Paramedics rushed Piczon to St. Luke’s Hospital where he received advanced cardiac treatment.

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Hospital staff said without the immediate assistance from Rose, Shikes and Borkowski, Piczon would have died.

“If it wasn’t for them, he definitely would not be alive,” Piczon’s son-in-law Dan Ulik said. “Larry said he saw him take his last breath.

“They said at the hospital if within the first six minutes he didn’t get oxygen, he would have been brain dead. … We were very, very lucky people were there who knew how to do it.”

Borkowski, Rose and Shikes received certificates of accommodation at Tuesday’s Village Board meeting. The certificate is the highest honor the police department bestows and is reserved for the police and citizens who perform extraordinary acts and selflessly serve another officer or a citizen, or the good of the community.


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