MILWAUKEE -- Statistically speaking, Tom Schraeder should have died when his body hit the hot pavement outside the stadium then known as Miller Park. His doctors later explained that given the severity of his heart attack, his chances of survival were about 5 percent.

But Schraeder lived. Fifteen years later, now 72 and as big a Brewers fan as ever, he lived to make it back to the ballpark for that year’s regular-season finale, when Ryan Braun and CC Sabathia helped snap Milwaukee’s torturous 26-year postseason drought. He lived to see his daughter beat cancer, and to see both of his children have children of their own. He lived to happily retire last fall after a 50-year career caring for adults with disabilities.

He lived because a Cubs fan was in the right place at the right time to help save him.

“There are so many things I would have missed if I had died,” Schraeder said. “But I wasn’t done doing what I was supposed to do in my life.”

July 31, 2008, was a hot summer day, and a lousy day for Brewers fans like Schraeder. The Cubs took an 11-1 lead into the ninth inning before the Brewers scored three meaningless runs to mercifully finish a four-game Chicago sweep. Schraeder, a season-ticket holder from Barneveld, Wis., had taken the week off work and rented a hotel room in Milwaukee for all four games. His brother planned to attend the series finale but had to cancel at the last moment.

So, Schraeder was alone as he hustled toward his car for the drive home to Barneveld, a village west of Madison where he and his wife, Trici, had built a home after raising their son, Jeremy, and daughter, Juliet, in nearby Dodgeville. Schraeder was enjoying a rare weeklong vacation from his work with Hodan Community Services, a non-profit in Mineral Point that provides opportunities for special needs adults. He got the job straight out of college, rose to executive director at 25 years old and held the position for the next 40 years before transitioning to part time, and then retiring last September after 50 years in all. So respected was Schraeder for his selfless work that he’ll be grand marshal of Mineral Point’s Fourth of July parade next month.

“Here’s a story that best encapsulates who my dad is,” Jeremy Schraeder said. “My daughter, she’s 11, and she’s always picking out her grandparents’ car by the license plates. She remembers her grandpa’s license plate because it has the letters ABK, for always be kind. ‘That’s what grampy is,’ she says.”

What happened in that parking lot -- Money 2, named for former Brewers infielder Don Money -- is all second hand to Schraeder, because he spent the next several days in a medically-induced coma at St. Luke’s Hospital. He learned the details later from witnesses, paramedics and doctors, and from a 36-page diary kept by Trici to chronicle every step. Each year on July 31, she said, Tom pages through the diary to remember his ordeal.

“I collapsed by my car,” Schraeder said. “Some people passing by thought I was having a seizure, so they just let me go through it, thinking that was the right thing to do. But then some people walked by who had some medical experience, including Jim Saletta.”

Saletta is the Cubs fan in this story, but the residents of Huntley, Ill., knew him as chief of the local fire department. He retired from that role in 2012 but, at 72, still consults for the Illinois Fire Chiefs Association. On that day in 2008, Saletta had the day off to take in a Cubs game with fellow firefighters.

Seeing Schraeder down on the ground, Saletta’s training kicked in, and he wasn't the only baseball fan to spring into action. Among Schraeder's life-saving first responders that day was Jason Steil, a nurse from University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison who had attended the game with his family. Steil, who had worked as a paramedic beginning in 1996, checked for a pulse and ordered onlookers to call for an automated external defibrillator. He began chest compressions while Saletta joined the effort.

Paletta and Steil both clearly recall one particularly troubling sign alerting them to the severity of the situation: Schraeder's face was blue.

His heart had stopped beating.

“There’s a thing called a chain of survival for someone who goes into cardiac arrest,” Saletta said. “I don’t want to get too technical with it, but certain things have to happen in sequence for a person to have long-term survival. Only about 10 percent make it.

“One, you have to recognize someone is down. Two, you’ve got to start CPR within the first few minutes. You have to defibrillate a few minutes after that. Then you have to get them to the hospital. And all of those things happened for Tom ideally as they would have happened. He was meant to be kept around.”

Saletta performed mouth-to-mouth while Steil continued chest compressions, and Schraeder’s color began to improve. When the stadium’s on-site paramedics arrived, they defibrillated Schraeder’s heart multiple times before it began beating again. And when the ambulance arrived, Schraeder was administered cardiac drugs and transported to St. Luke’s Hospital. It was one of only two hospitals in the country at the time, doctors told Trici, that was performing therapeutic hypothermia for cardiac arrest, in which a patient’s body temperature is cooled far below normal for a period of days. That gives the heart a chance to rest before surgery.

On the fourth day following his heart attack, Schraeder underwent a quadruple bypass. He was hospitalized for two weeks afterward. For three months, he couldn’t work.

“I had no indication that I had heart trouble prior to this,” he said. “So it was a real shocker.”

Even at the depths of his recovery, baseball was a companion. Jeremy read to his father from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel sports section, even when he wasn’t sure whether his dad was listening. Because of one of the medications he was on, Trici said, Tom would wake with short-term memory loss, unaware of why he was in the hospital with tubes everywhere. It was a frightening ordeal. Eventually, the family found the one thing that soothed him: Listening to the Brewers radio broadcast.

“The experience has been a real lens to see our lives through, and to think about hardships or difficult times,” said Schraeder’s daughter, Juliet Whitsett, who fought, and beat, Hodgkin's lymphoma beginning just a year after her dad’s heart attack. “We only have so much time on this Earth. We only have one precious life, and we have to live it.”

*****

As Tom recovered, Trici wrote letters to everyone involved in saving his life. She thanked them for their care and provided updates about his steady recovery.

One return letter, dated Nov. 6, 2008, stood out. It came from Jim Saletta.

Dear Tom,

Good to hear from you and hear that you are recovering well. Your story certainly is one of beating the odds. I agree you have been given a second chance. There is a reason to believe that you have a purpose yet to fulfill in this life. I personally don't believe in coincidence. Everything is falling into place for you. I am impressed with your life's work and I'm glad that you will be able to continue to help others.

Thanks for the baseball tickets. Unfortunately, both of our teams didn't advance. The good news is that it made for an exciting season. Maybe next season, we can connect for a game. Your place or mine? I did confess to my wife that I kissed another man with a mustache. I offered to shave off for her benefit, but she wants me to keep it. Also, it must have been quite a sight to see a group of Cubs fans beating up on a Brewers fan, the possible perception of us while doing CPR. I'm grateful that the security staff realized what we were doing. With Thanksgiving fast approaching, this much is to be thankful for.

Take care. Have a nice holiday.

Sincerely, Jim.

They met for the first time the following summer for a Cubs-Brewers game at Miller Park and have renewed the tradition every year since, alternating venues between Milwaukee and Chicago. In Milwaukee, Schraeder picks up the tab for tickets. At Wrigley Field, Saletta returns the favor. The only exception was 2020, when teams played with no fans in the stands during the pandemic.

“When we went to the first game, I thought it was a one and done deal,” Saletta said. “But we hit it off right away.”

“I always say it’s the one day that I don’t feel too bad if the Brewers don’t win,” Schraeder said. “I’m still rooting for the Brewers, of course, but if the Cubs win, I’m happy for my friend.”

This year, they’ll gather their families at American Family Field on July 6 -- fittingly, the finale of a four-game series between the Cubs and Brewers in Milwaukee. They’re expecting about 55 people for a pregame tailgate, including all of the kids and grandkids.

Both men are already practicing for a ceremonial first pitch. Schraeder has been throwing in Barneveld with a box of six dozen baseballs purchased by his wife. The local high school invited him to use the field, which has a target net so he doesn’t have to chase balls too far. He has grandchildren to impress, after all. Jeremy’s daughter and Juliet’s twin girls are all 11 years old.

It does not go far enough to say that Schraeder is grateful for Saletta, Steil and all of the others who worked together to save his life.

“So much has happened since that day,” he said. “My daughter had a bout with cancer, she beat it. She was told she couldn’t have kids, she ended up having twins. We’re a very happy family.

“I’ve always been a very optimistic guy. So, that didn’t change. But after the heart attack I felt even more blessed, and I felt that everything happened for a reason. The right people were there. They get me to St. Luke’s, one of the best heart places in the nation. It just reinforced to me that I needed to continue to live my life to help other people as best as I can. And I got to work another 15 years with my friends with disabilities.”

He also got 15 years and counting of friendship.

“You know, I was a paramedic for 30 years. I was in the fire service for 37 years,” Saletta said. “There have been other occasions where we’ve had saves, but you never know who you’re working on. What’s great about this is that I got to know who Tom was, and he’s a fantastic guy. All the work he has done with the Hodan center, you know, to me, he’s my hero.”

Before he went back to work for others, Schraeder wanted to do something for himself. Once he was through the worst of his immediate recovery, he resolved to make it to the final game of the 2008 regular season.

In a twist of fate, the Brewers played the Cubs.

If you’re a fan of the Brewers old enough to drive a car, you know the game. It was Sunday, Sept. 28, 2008. Schraeder attended with Jeremy, and they watched Braun hit a go-ahead home run in the eighth inning before Sabathia finished a complete game. They stuck around with 42,000 other fans to watch the Marlins beat the Mets, and with that, Milwaukee clinched the NL Wild Card. It was the Brewers’ first postseason appearance since 1982.

At home, Schraeder has a $2 bill from a friend with the inscription, “Second chances are a blessing.” It’s framed alongside two ticket stubs from 2008, one from July 31 when the Cubs finished a sweep and Schraeder’s life changed, and another from Sept. 28, the day he returned to the scene and saw the Brewers triumph.

“Second chances are a blessing,” Schraeder said. “They certainly were for me, and they were for the Brewers, too.”