On January 13th, 2019, I woke up to a seemingly normal Sunday. I was a healthy, 30 year old mother sharing breakfast with my 11 month old son and my husband, Scott. When I went to get our son ready for church, Scott had a feeling that he needed to come check on us. What he walked into was nothing normal. Scott found me unconscious, pulseless, and turning blue…clinically dead. His prior training as a lifeguard and our recent CPR class gave him the tools necessary to act fast. He started compressions and called 911. With incredible guidance from our 911 dispatcher and fire & ambulance there in minutes, I was quickly receiving shocks and being transported to the hospital. 

I had CPR within minutes, shocks from an AED, and near immediate care, yet my family was still told to prepare for the worst. I was put into a therapeutic hypothermia coma, and Scott spent the next several days talking to me, praying, and not knowing what life would look like for us on the other side. We are one of the very few lucky ones where I miraculously made a full recovery, but that is far from the case for almost all cardiac arrests. The only way to survive Sudden Cardiac Arrest is with bystander CPR, and the only way to help more people survive is to spread awareness on CPR and AED training. 

Do you have an SCA survivor story? We’d love for you to share it with us! Just send a short video (1-3 minutes long) or a written story to [email protected].