They were on their way to Southern Illinois to visit Frank’s son at college before classes resumed for the next semester. They had stopped for the night in the small Arkansas town of Newport and had settled in for the night before resuming their trip North the next morning. It was a cold, wintry February night in 1984 when sometime around 2AM Frank woke up with a severe case of indigestion. He woke his wife, Marilyn, and asked her to go to the hotel desk and ask if they had any antacids. Marilyn walked down to the desk, retrieved some antacids and went back to the hotel room where Frank took the antacids and went back to bed. Upon awakening the next morning, the indigestion was no better than it was the night before but, much, much worse. Marilyn tried to talk Frank into visiting the local Emergency Room. Frank argued that it was nothing more than his usual indigestion but, that it was just worse than usual for some odd reason. Marilyn would not give up so, she sat down and called the local Newport hospital and spoke with the triage nurse in the Emergency Room. The nurse on the telephone was in agreement with Marilyn that Frank needed to come by the Emergency Room just to be checked. With the Emergency Room nurse’s advice, Frank finally broke down and agreed with Marilyn to go by the Emergency Room for what he believed would be a checkup, an EKG and some bloodwork. As it turned out, Marilyn was correct in forcing Frank to the ER. Frank was having a myocardial infarction. A heart attack.

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Frank was rushed by ambulance to the nearest ICU in Searcy, Arkansas, until he was stable enough to be transferred back closer to home a full week later. He was then transferred to Fort Smith, Arkansas to St. Edwards Hospital where he would remain under cardiologists care for two more weeks. The myocardial infarction had caused 40% damage to Frank’s heart muscle.

One month after his initial heart attack, Frank was admitted to the hospital once more for a balloon angioplasty but, was informed that he had yet another blocked artery in his heart beyond the one that was slightly opened with the balloon angioplasty. He would remain under cardiologist care for the remaining part of the year experiencing chest pains over and over again until the cardiologist decided that it wasn’t going to get better. The balloon angioplasty had not opened up the main blocked artery enough to make a difference plus, he had the other fully blocked artery still in there blocked. Frank needed open heart surgery.

In October of 1984 Frank went under the knife and they cracked his sternum, cut into his heart and split the blocked arteries open and replaced the blocked areas of the arteries with segments of artery removed from Frank’s leg. Over a seven-month period Frank went from bad indigestion to a double bypass open heart surgery. Once he had had the first myocardial infarction he had an incredible personality change from a calm and collected, cool headed man to an irritable, grouchy, constantly angered human being. He had experienced so much time with so little oxygen to the brain during the heart attack and from the blocked arteries that it had, literally, changed his personality. The loss of oxygen during the heart attack had actually caused some brain damage.

Don’t ever think you may be too smart to not know when you are having a heart attack. Frank was a doctor, himself. Frank thought he was simply having a nasty case of indigestion and only went to the Emergency Room at the insistence of his wife and a triage nurse on a telephone. Be heart smart. Know the signs, know the symptoms, know when you need to get checked out. Don’t be afraid of looking silly or naïve when you are having some “bad indigestion.” That burrito you had for lunch may not be the problem; it may the hundreds of burritos you’ve eaten your whole life.

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For Kory Trebbin, attending church on a Sunday morning in May, there was little warning that this day would differ from other Sundays. But, before it was over, the 53-year old Santa Clara resident would experience sudden cardiac arrest, lose his heartbeat for a full 18 minutes, and have his life saved by an off-duty ER physician who answered an alert from a mobile app in her phone.

On seeing that Trebbin was unresponsive and had no pulse, witnesses dialed 9-1-1, summoning professional first responders. Simultaneously, a nearby off-duty ER physician was alerted via her Smart Phone of this emergency just blocks from her home. Arriving before the first responders, she performed CPR on Trebbin until police arrived with an Automated External Defibrillator, or AED, which she used to re-establish productive heart rhythm.  She then accompanied Trebbin via ambulance to the nearest hospital, which happened to be the hospital at which she worked.

The app which alerted her, PulsePoint, is designed to strengthen the “chain of survival” by alerting nearby CPR-trained citizens to sudden cardiac arrests in the area, thus increasing the odds that lifesaving measures can be taken even before the arrival of Emergency Medical Services personnel.

Sudden cardiac arrest, which involves a malfunctioning of the heart’s electrical system, is often fatal, especially without medical intervention. In fact, after 10 minutes without resuscitation, there is little chance the victim will survive. So it’s not surprising that out-of-hospital SCAs are a leading cause of death in America, claiming the lives of 420,000 – close to half a million – people each year. The American Heart Association reports that prompt bystander assistance – early CPR and the administration of a therapeutic shock from a defibrillator, when indicated — can double and even triple chances of survival, and help reduce this grim statistic. LA-based cardiologist Dr. Leslie Saxon agrees on the need for bystander intervention, stating “It’s going to take a community to impact the dismal survival rates for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients.”

Trebbin, who suffered no cognitive damage in spite of having no heartbeat for 18 minutes, called his survival a “miracle” and credited the 911 callers, the first responders, and the existence of the mobile app. “PulsePoint connected me with someone who could, and did, save my life,” Trebbin said.

In the moment when sudden cardiac arrests strikes, a split second decision to get down on your hands and knees to perform CPR may be just the ticket to save the victim’s life. In fact, studies and medical research reveals that individuals who receive CPR within two minutes of a cardiac arrest are less likely to suffer brain damage.

Joe Farrell is a cardiac arrest survival victim who knows firsthand – on two different accounts – how CPR can save a life. In August of 2008, Joe had just arrived at a professional friend’s house around 2 p.m. He and his wife were attending a memorial dinner on behalf of their friend’s husband who had recently passed away. According to Farrell’s wife, he was speaking to a few friends and a local track coach when he suddenly collapsed. Unconscious and not breathing, the track coach immediately started to perform CPR on Farrell while someone else contacted paramedics. It took paramedics between 5 and 6 minutes to arrive on the scene. When they arrived, they shocked him four times to bring back his cardiac rhythm.

What is so unique about Joe’s cardiac arrest survival story is that just one year prior in August of 2007, when he was 55-years-old, he saved a man’s life by performing CPR on him. He was on a golf course in Nevada when he stumbled upon the man – who was unconscious and not breathing when he found him. Farrell performed CPR while a second golfer contacted paramedics. According to Joe, time appeared to move in slow motion as it took paramedics what seemed like forever to arrive. The victim was transferred to a hospital via helicopter and also survived the cardiac arrest. To this day, he and Joe are good friends.

Joe Farrell believes he is lucky to have known how to perform CPR and is even more lucky to have been in the presence of someone who knew CPR as well. Had CPR not been immediately performed on himself and the man he found unconscious on the golf course in Nevada one year prior to his own cardiac arrest, he doesn’t know if he or the other man would still be alive today.