KDKA Arranges On-Camera Reunion Between Anchor and People Who Saved Her Life

By Andrew Gauthier 

Susan Koeppen returned to the KDKA anchor desk this week, two months after suffering a cardiac arrest, and the CBS O&O is marking the occasion by unspooling a multi-part series about her medical emergency and current rehabilitation program.

On Monday, KDKA reporter Ken Rice told the story of Koeppen’s cardiac arrest (video here) and on Tuesday, Rice was back with a piece on the people who helped save her life.

In an arranged reunion at the scene of where Koeppen’s heart failed her on a morning jog, she met with the people who helped save her: a group of firefighters and two medical students, who just happened to be driving by when Koeppen collapsed (video inside).

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Koeppen gave each of them a photo of her kids, with a note written on the back: “You saved my Mommy.”

“If I had died, it would have been okay with me, because I have lived a very full life, and when I went down that day, I had no fear, no pain. I was gone,” Koeppen said.  “It would have been horrible for my babies to grow up without a mommy and horrible for my husband to be without a wife. So, the people who saved my life, saved my family… and gave them their mom and their wife back.”

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