On Oct. 24, 2021, dressed as a zombie and dancing in Lexington’s annual Thriller Parade, I collapsed from sudden cardiac arrest and died in front of the Kentucky Theatre.
Main Street was packed with a thousand zombies and 10,000 spectators, making it impossible for an emergency vehicle to navigate through the horde of zombies. If not for the heroic actions of Charlotte Callan, who performed CPR for over 10 minutes, I would not be here today. She kept oxygenated blood flowing to my brain until paramedics arrived to shock my heart back to life with an Automated External Defibrillator. Charlotte was later honored by Mayor Linda Gorton with the Spirit of Lexington Award.
The irony of my story is that while Charlotte was desperately pumping my chest in the street, there was an AED inside the office of the Kentucky Theatre. But no one knew how to find it, because Lexington doesn’t have them mapped! Knowing where AEDs are, saves lives; this asset could have saved critical minutes. In a sudden cardiac arrest event, every second matters; survival rates drop by 10 percent for every minute that passes without defibrillation. Having an AED nearby and accessible while waiting for an ambulance can mean the difference between life and death…