Odds & Ends

Dad wakes from coma

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) >> A Minnesota man awoke from a medically-induced coma just in time for the birth of his son after his wife, at 39 weeks pregnant, saved him from cardiac arrest.

Ashley Goette says she awoke Oct. 16 to hear her husband, Andrew Goette, gasping for air in their West St. Paul home. She called 911 and a dispatcher guided her through administering CPR. First responders arrived and rushed Andrew to United Hospital in St. Paul, where he was placed in a coma to minimize possible brain damage.

Doctors told Ashley it wasn’t clear if her husband would survive or if he would suffer brain damage. Ashley told her husband she wouldn’t have the baby until he awoke, and he did several days later, neurologically intact and in time for the birth of their first child, Lennon.

A l t hough Andrew couldn’t bewheeled into the room to be at his wife’s side during the Caesarean section, her sister streamed the birth to himon FaceTime so he could watch it from outside the door.

Stolen bonsai

HONOLULU(AP)>> Hawaii police are trying to find a rare bonsai tree that was stolen from a nursery owner who says he spent 56 years caring for it. In this Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2018, photo Andrew Goette and his wife, Ashley, look at their baby, Lennon, at United Hospital in Saint Paul, Minn. Andrew awoke from a medically-induced coma just in time for the birth of Lennon after his wife, at 39weeks pregnant, saved him from cardiac arrest.

The tree was taken in September from David Fukumoto’s nursery in the Big Island community of Mountain View, he said.

Fukumoto began growing the tree in 1962 to spruce up the bare-bones Honolulu apartment he and his wife lived in as newlyweds, he said Tuesday.

“I ended up getting hooked on growing bonsai,” Fukumoto, 78, said, describing how he took it with him when he moved to the Big Island where he runs a nursery called Fuku-Bonsai. “I feel as if they kidnapped my daughter. This is my first bonsai.”

Fukumoto said the tree was on higher ground when 3-feet-high flooding from Hurricane Lane wiped out some of his other bonsai trees in August.

Police don’t want to reveal the tree’s value, Capt. Ken Quiocho said. Police started asking the public for help Tuesday because they have exhausted leads, he said.

“We desperately want to try to find this tree and get it back to the owner,” he said.

Police believe the person who took it was familiar with the tree and knew its value, Quiocho said.

“It’s 56 years old,” Fukumotosaid. “Howcanyouput a value on that?”