Comedian Drew Lynch paused his show to help when Dick Wende, 83, went into cardiac arrest. Photo / Drew Lynch
Comedian Drew Lynch was onstage and had just begun his stand-up set at the Spokane Comedy Club when he saw a commotion in the audience.
“Hey, everything okay?” he asked into the microphone.
“No,” someone responded. A member of the audience was in medical distress.
People called 911, and an EMT and two emergency room nurses in the audience began chest compressions. The man, who was attending the show with his son and daughter-in-law, did not have a pulse for five minutes.
“It was the longest five minutes of my whole life,” Lynch told the Washington Post. “I was in shock.”
The man, Dick Wende, 83, was in cardiac arrest, said his son, Nathan Wende.
“They couldn’t even shock him because he didn’t have a shockable rhythm,” said Nathan Wende, noting that his father has congestive heart failure and high blood pressure, though that night, September 12, was the only time he’d experienced cardiac arrest.
The CPR worked and medics arrived. Nathan Wende credits the audience with saving his father’s life.
“They jumped in and did their job,” he said. “It is so important to know CPR.”
After Dick Wende was taken to Sacred Heart Medical Centre in Spokane, Washington, Lynch resumed his set – but not as he had originally intended.
“That was incredible,” Lynch said, weeping and looking visibly shaken in a video of the incident. “You guys all really just came together in a really cool way … you saved that guy’s life.”
Then he cut the tension in the room with a joke.
“I have literally the hardest job in the world now, and that’s mostly what this is about,” he said, pointing to his tears.
After the show, the comedy club owner told Lynch that Dick Wende’s walker had been left behind. Lynch decided to deliver it personally – and try to make his fan laugh from his hospital bed.
“I’m going to finish my job,” he recalled thinking.
The next day, Lynch – who is currently on tour – showed up in Dick Wende’s hospital room with his two opening acts, Akeem Hoyte-Charles and Rachel Aflleje.
Dick Wende could hardly believe his eyes.
“I was really excited. I didn’t realise he would do something like that,” Dick Wende said about Lynch. “He’s a national personality. I was pretty pumped up.”
Lynch hugged his fan, then sat on his bed and put his arm around him.
Dick Wende, a speech therapist for 50 years, has followed Lynch since he saw him on America’s Got Talent in 2015. Lynch developed a stutter after a sports injury in 2011.
“I worked with a lot of stuttering young people throughout my life,” he said. “I could sense what he was going through.”
When Dick Wende heard Lynch was on tour and coming to Spokane, his son bought tickets.
“He has followed Drew Lynch for a long time. He was really excited to go see him,” Nathan Wende said.
Dick Wende did not imagine, though, that he would become friends with the comedian. Lynch spent more than two hours in his hospital room cracking jokes. He also autographed his walker.
“He told Dad he gave new meaning to the term ‘die laughing,’” Nathan Wende said.
“I think we had more laughter in that hospital than they’ve seen in a long, long time,” Dick Wende said.
The two also swapped life stories.
“He understands my past, he understands my pain and now I know so much about his,” Lynch said. “We’re bonded for life.”
Dick Wende said he was stunned at the turn of events.
“He was just so genuine,” he said. “It made my year; it made my life.”
Dick Wende’s family – his two sons, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren – were there, too.
“It was just a real fun time,” Nathan Wende said. “My dad is so happy. He’s been on Cloud Nine ever since.”
Dick Wende is recovering and will be in a rehabilitation centre for about two weeks. He said he is grateful to have been at the comedy show, rather than alone at home, when he went into cardiac arrest.
“The crowd came together, and it’s a testament to the people that care here in Spokane,” Dick Wende said. “I can enjoy my family and my life for a little longer.”
Lynch said he is still struck by how the audience responded.
“No one hesitated, no one was filming. Everybody just understood what we needed to do … No one knew each other but they all just came together for this shared goal. It was really beautiful,” he said.
“In the world that we’re in, that is so rare. It has nothing to do with me; it has everything to do with the audience.”
The experience left Lynch reflecting on the fragility of life, and the importance of helping one another.
“We’re all human, and we’re all here for a short period of time, and it can be gone very fast,” Lynch said.
Now that he knows Dick Wende personally, “I got to know how lucky we are that we brought back such a great person”.
Lynch and Dick Wende have been in contact since the hospital visit.
“You died, and now that you came back, you’re stuck with me forever,” Lynch told him.
Dick Wende said he couldn’t be more thrilled about his new friendship.
“He will be a friend for the rest of my life,” he said. “It will be a joy to know him.”
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