Heart Attack Victim Saved by Defibrillator Salesman

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Re: Heart Attack Victim Saved by Defibrillator Salesman

How often is it a good thing to be around a salesman?

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Heart Attack Victim Saved by Defibrillator Salesman

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/s...30944&catid=82

ST. LOUIS, MO -- Ask Carolyn Holt to tell you about the day that changed her life and it starts like any other day. "April 21st, it was on a Friday and I was driving down Mid Rivers Mall Drive," Holt remembers.

That's where Steve Earl has to pick up the story.

"I was coming from our baby-sitters house, we had just picked up my daughter is was about 6:00. We swerved out of the way and she hit the guard rail behind us," Earl explains. On April 21, 2006 Carolyn Holt got a second chance at life thanks to four complete strangers.

"I went and pulled the receiver hitch out of the back of my truck and I busted out the rear window so I wouldn't get glass all over her and unlocked the door and pulled her out," recalls F.J. Runyon. "She was really blue and really in need of care instantly," he added. Carolyn was the victim of sudden cardiac arrest.

"There's a lot of emphasis placed on stroke and heart attacks but sudden cardiac arrest kills about a third of a million people a year," Carolyn Holt points out. "A person loses approximately 10 percent chance of survival for every minute that passes," Earl explains.

And that's where this story turns into more of a miracle because Steve, the guy she almost hit, was an automated external defibrillator salesman.
"I hadn't used it in a live situation obviously, I had used in simulated situations," Earl says.

That AED is essentially what saved Carolyn's life.

"95 percent of people who go into sudden cardiac arrest die," Holt says. "I tell everybody I have a Timex heart, it takes a licking and keeps on ticking."