Boardman Local School Board President Nik Amstutz, 50, is recuperating from cardiac arrest suffered on Sun., Mar. 9 during a meeting of the committee raising funds to construct a new stadium at Boardman High School.
      While at the meeting, held at Center Middle School, Amstutz collapsed and was turning blue.
      Immediately to his aid was the school system’s business manager, Tim Saxton, who administered CPR before emergency crews arrived.
      “If not for all the quick-thinking people and Tim performing CPR, Nik may not be with us today,” his wife, Ginny, said on Facebook.
      Emergency crews took Amstutz to St. Elizabeth Hospital in Boardman, where after nearly half-an-hour. medical personnel found a pulse and heart beat. Mrs. Amstutz said her husband was “placed on a vent and moved to the intensive care unit.”
      The following day, Amstutz was transported to St. Elizabeth in Youngstown, for a heart catheterization procedure. However, doctors felt it best to postpone the procedure and instead, air-lifted Amstutz to the Cleveland Clinic.
      The procedure there revealed clear arteries and no blockages, Mrs. Amstutz said, adding her husband “has had a few setbacks, but he is alert, off the vent and knows everyone by name...He has a way to go, but is on the right track to recovery. We are taking it one day at a time”
      Amstutz suffered the heart attack because of diabetes, his wife said.
      “His blood sugar was so high and had been for some time that his heart was thrown out of rhythm and he went into cardiac arrest.”
      Saxton said he had received CPR training several years ago, and when the time came, “I used it. It’s what you had to do in that situation.”
      Nik and his wife are the parents of two children, Steven and Lizzie.
      Mrs. Amstutz said the Cleveland Clinic has given her husband “amazing care.”