East Helena Officer Honored with Lifesaving Award After Resuscitation Effort

Officer Zach Butler received a Lifesaving Award from the East Helena City Council after he and his brother, Officer Kyle Butler, used CPR and an automated external defibrillator to resuscitate East Helena resident Jason Miller following a reported Oct. 19 cardiac arrest, East Helena Police Chief Mike Sanders said.

At the City Hall recognition, Jason Miller attended with his wife and met the officers who saved him for the first time since the incident; Miller shook the brothers’ hands, said “thank you” and embraced both officers, according to coverage and a photograph credited to Eliza DuBose of The Monitor. Mayor Kelly Harris, taking part in Butler’s confirmation as a full East Helena police officer after a one-year probationary period, joked during the council action: “I guess we’d better affirm your appointment, you keep saving lives.”

Chief Sanders praised the department’s training while noting how uncommon out-of-hospital survival is. “It's a testament to the quality of our officers,” Sanders said, “and the quality of the training that they receive.” Sanders also highlighted that “just 1 in 10 people who receive CPR outside a hospital survive to get treatment,” and local reporting cited Red Cross figures that “some 9 of 10 people who experience cardiac arrest outside a hospital die,” with survival chances declining roughly 10 percent each minute without CPR and defibrillation.

The Butler brothers were not the only East Helena officers honored this month. Officer Zach Butler and Deputy Chief Ed Royce also received recognition for a Nov. 21 incident in which they used CPR to revitalize an unnamed woman, and Chief Sanders called it remarkable that officers saved two lives in roughly a month. Separately, Chief Sanders presented Cliff Cox, Trent DeBoo and Ken Harris with Life-Saving Awards at a Wednesday morning ceremony at East Helena city hall for their response after East Helena resident Jesse Lee’s heart failed on March 15; the Independent Record reported the three officers received awards as the department works to rebuild and rebrand.

A related, but jurisdictionally separate, presentation was held in Helena where Helena Police Cpl. Matt Lewis received a Lifesaving Award for a Dec. 10 response to a multi-vehicle rollover at the water treatment plant on East Custer Avenue. Lewis broke through a locked vehicle window, found an unconscious man without an identifiable heartbeat, and performed CPR while medical units set up; Lt. Randy Ranalli wrote the nomination that said Lewis’ actions played a “huge role” in saving the man’s life. “It’s what we do,” Lewis said. “Happy to do it.” Helena Police Chief Steve Hagen praised Lewis, saying, “He’s one of those officers we can depend on day-in and day-out to do the right thing and actually have an impact on the community.”

Some details remain to be verified for the East Helena accounts: local coverage shows Jason Miller’s spouse named as Jennifer Miller in text and as Jessica Miller in a photo caption, and sources give month and day for incidents without explicit years or calendar dates for the City Council and city-hall ceremonies. City officials did provide the statements and photos reported here; formal confirmation of spellings and exact dates was listed by local outlets as outstanding.