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“I felt like I had the flu or something,” Ward explained while describing that day.

“Didn’t have chest pain or anything. Just dropped while I was working in the cafeteria.”

Ward continued “They did CPR and couldn’t get anything And I was starting to change colors. The staff did a wonder taking care of me Making sure I’m still here.”

Ward, affectionately known as Mr. Bill around in the halls of the school, says his favorite job now is checking on the AED—making sure the battery always reads “ok.”

“Check it once a month,” he said while pointing out the battery.

School leaders say there’s one AED in every elementary and middle school, and three per high school. They were installed six years ago at a cost of $151,000.

Ward says they’re priceless.

“I think it’s a really wise investment,” he joked. “But if you need it, it’s a godsend.”

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The airport said that the woman appeared to faint, while standing in the security screening line.

A nurse practitioner and an EMT who were off duty, were on hand and jumped over to help.

A TSA worker grabbed the AED from the first floor, and the team was able to revive the woman.

Airport officials said that when Gold Cross responded, they said it looked like the woman’s pacemaker failed.

The 148th Fighter Wing fire department also responded. They said on Monday it appeared the woman would be OK.

The airport said she was from the Detroit area.

The airport had the AED installed in 2005.

“We have training each year. We’re glad it saved a life,” said Blaine Peterson, facilities manager.

“I was just looking at him and it seemed like he just took his last breath and it was like, uhhhh.”

Deanna “Dee” Norflee, never thought she would have to use an Automatic External Defibrillator or an A-E-D. She got training in March on the machine and in November she had to use it.

Bart Skinner the Survivor with Deanna Norflee the Saviour

“I came into the gym and I saw him kneeling over right here in this exact spot,” she says.

Bart Skinner, 55, was just playing basketball on the same hard wood floors LeBron James did when he lived in Akron.

“My buddy’s girlfriend looked at me and said, ‘Bart you don’t look too good,’ and she said I told her I don’t feel good and that’s about all I remember.”

A call to 9-1-1 and the decision to grab the A-E-D saved Skinner’s life.

“When it said press the button we are ready to go,” said Norflee.

Bart was out for three minutes before being treated by the AED.

E-M-S arrived in minutes and took over the situation.

Bart is alive, and well and thankful for AED’s

“I think there a blessing and I’m glad for them and I’m glad I have training on them,” says Skinner.

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“My best friend is there on that wall,” the fitness instructor said, pointing to the defibrillator hanging outside the community arenas at the WFCU Centre where she teaches fitness classes and staffs the reception desk.

Rose Wood the Saviour

On Friday at around 8 p.m., she was at the desk when a man ran out of a pickup hockey game telling her to call 911. Another player had collapsed on his way off the ice.

Right away, Wood’s safety training and her people-organizing skills kicked in.

“It was a team effort,” the 54-year-old grandmother of four boys said.

She instructed the other desker to call an ambulance, grabbed the defibrillator off the wall, rushed into the arena to where the man — who she can only describe as in his 40s and little heavy — was lying on the black rubber floor.

“I just did it,” Wood said, describing how she got down on the ground, shouted for help to get the man’s hockey jersey off, and asked a woman nearby to help her put the defibrillator pads on the man’s chest and under his right arm.

The other 20 or so people were told to stand back when she pressed the button on the defibrillator to release the electric charge.

“He jumped,” Wood said about the shock sent to the man’s heart. “I had never seen that before.”

She gave mouth-to-mouth while she instructed the woman nearby — whom Wood said she did not recognize, but would like to thank for her help — to do chest compressions on the man.

“It seemed like hours,” Wood said. “I yelled, ‘Where is that ambulance?’”

One player was posted to the arena entrance to hail the ambulance, a second was given the task of clearing a path in the crowd for the paramedics, and a third was told to help emergency workers cross the ice safely.

Doug Sweet, who manages the arena, said he could not confirm who the man was or where he was taken to hospital, but he said he believed he was taken to a hospital in Detroit.

“We know he’s doing well,” Sweet said, adding that all the staff are very proud of how Wood managed the situation.

“I just bawled my eyes out,” Wood said, describing her reaction once the paramedics took over. “I couldn’t stop,” she said, adding that she was still shaking a little on Monday night.

Wood regularly goes through safety training as a fitness instructor, but she has never had to put her skills into practice in real life, she said, despite having worked in this field since 1987.

“I never want to do it again, but if I have to, I have no qualms,” she said. In fact, she added jokingly, she wants to find out just how long the whole process took so that if she has to do it again, she can beat her time.

Wood joked that the defibrillator is the real hero of the story and thinks she might give the little machine a name, but the experience has made her more aware of where defibrillators are in public places, whether it’s at the mall where she was running errands on the weekend, or at the arena where her grandchildren play hockey in Belle River.

The arena has eight defibrillators, Sweet said, adding that since it opened, there have been six heart attacks.

With thousands of people attending games and playing games each night, he said, it’s almost inevitable one will happen at some point, but thanks to the defibrillators and trained staff, the arena is prepared for this type of emergency.

The staff are trained annually in CPR and defibrillator use and undergo quarterly emergency training.

“Everybody in these situations works as a team,” Sweet said.

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And he would have been, except the people around him knew just what to do — they gave him CPR and hooked him up to an automatic external defibrillator.

“You never think it will happen to you,” said Carlstrom, who turned 62 the next day. “I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for the quick-thinking staff and members at the gym who were able to apply CPR and activate the AED within three minutes of the incident.”

It happened at the L.A. Fitness center in Ballard. After Carlstrom and his racquetball partner, Leo Muller, sat down after their game, Carlstrom felt ill.

I was “sitting down on the bench, as is our usual custom to catch a breath, putting away the gear, and suddenly feeling a profound sense of unwellness,” Carlstrom told the TV station.

Then he slid to the floor, his face turning purple.

Flight attendant Page Huletz was working out and saw what happened. As part of her airline work, she receives periodic training on CPR and the use of external defibrillators.

As the employees of the health club rushed to perform CPR on Dave, Huletz reached for the electronic device.

“Right away we shocked him, his body comes up off the floor, and then the shock is absorbed and he took his first breath, and that was a miracle right there,” Huletz.

Dave was in the hospital for five days and is back at home. The story says he was “banned” from the racquetball courts until January.

He appeared on the TV story with the flight attendant who saved him and he also posed for pictures with the fire department personnel, who arrived in less than four minutes, and the health club workers.

“There’s been enormous mercy and grace in my life,” Dave said.

I asked Dave by email what it felt like when his heart stopped. He repeated the comment about the mercy and grace that has come his way and said:

“As for what it was like … after keeling over (quick, painless … great way to exit this mortal stage, albeit with a few loose ends for successors and assigns) I only saw darkness, i.e., no beckoning tunnel of light, etc.,” he said.

“I asked our pastor if I should be concerned. She thought a moment and inquired, ‘What was the temperature?’ No flames, so the matter was deemed theologically inconclusive … could be going either way.”

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Trey Bren and Kelsey Remund, both part-time community center recreation leaders, were working at Morningside Community Center on Dec. 4 when they spotted Vance Magee, a 21-year-old Sioux Falls resident, who had fallen to the floor at mid-court while playing basketball.

Kelsey Remund & Trey Bren the Saviours

Magee was experiencing a cardiac arrest.

After he got back on his feet and was able to be taken off the court, he started seizing.

The pair acted quickly, calling 911 and using the public access defibrillator and CPR to save the unresponsive Magee’s life.

All Parks and Recreation employees receive CPR training, officials said Thursday at the ceremony honoring the pair, and that training was a large factor in Bren and Remund’s quick response, they said.

“We’ve always done the training with the CPR and everything, and never once did I think I’d actually have to use it,” Remund said. “The training helped a lot.

Bren and Remund were given plaques Thursday in recognition of their fast action, clear thinking and ability to take action.

Vance remembers little of that day, only waking up in the hospital, where he spent six days. Now, he said he feels good and is excited to get back to work.

“I’m just glad to be here right now, it’s kind of hard to realize what I’ve been through,” Magee said. “I just want to say thank you to everybody, thank you.”

Bren and Remund say they were glad they could do their job and help save a life.

“Vance, I don’t want you or your family to think that you owe us anything; we were simply doing our job,” Bren said.

Sioux Falls Mayor Mike Huether said he was proud of the pair.

“Four words: Vance is with us,” said Huether said. “I’m just so proud. I get to do so many great things as mayor, and this is just another one. You two young people , look at the impact you’ve already made.Your moms are proud of you, your dads are proud of you, I’m proud of you, the city is proud of you. Nice job.”

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Planet Fitness employee Whitni Hendley, 22, of York Beach, Maine, said it was around 6:45 a.m. when a gym patron came running over to the front desk, screaming for her to call 911.

Whitni Hendley the Saviour

The stricken man, a 65-year-old from Rye, was working out at the Lafayette Road location and had gone into cardiac arrest. He was not breathing and had no pulse.

Hendley said she handed off the phone to the panicked patron and put some of the training she learned while attending paramedic school to the test.

What happened next was a blur, said Hendley, but ultimately saved the man’s life.

After running to the back corner of the gym and finding the man on the ground, Hendley said she checked for his pulse, but found nothing. Hendley said she then grabbed an automated external defibrillator and prepared it to deliver a shock.

“People were freaking out,” she said. “I tried to calm everyone down and take care of the guy.”

When the defibrillator read “shocking advised,” Hendley said the seriousness of the situation became more apparent.

“I said, ‘Oh man, this is real now,’” she said. “I made sure everyone was clear, and after he was shocked, I went right into CPR for two minutes. I then reanalyzed him and he had a pulse.”

Another gym patron reportedly assisted Hendley in giving the unknown man CPR.

Having performed a variety of similar training exercises while in paramedic school in Jacksonville, Fla., Hendley said she never before had to use her training.

“It was the first time I had ever done it. It was just me,” she said. “It was pretty exciting.”

Word of Hendley’s life-saving actions has spread throughout the gym community. The news also attracted the attention of city officials, who said that, without her actions, the outcome would’ve been much different.

“This is as real as it gets,” said Assistant Fire Chief Steve Achilles, who visited Hendley at the gym Wednesday.

Achilles said he wanted to meet Hendley to say thank you and congratulate her on her life-saving efforts.

“This is the stuff you read in success stories,” he said.

The assistant fire chief lauded Hendley for having someone else call 911 and for jumping into action. He said the chances of a person surviving a heart attack without CPR or an electric shock is about 10 percent.

“The fact that, after she used the AED and continued to do CPR for a few minutes, he had a pulse is amazing,” Achilles said. “That’s what it’s all about.”

Achilles said paramedics arrived less than five minutes after the 911 call was made. By that time, the man was breathing.

“To go from someone who is clinically dead to someone that is alive is just simply amazing,” he said.

Having an AED in the facility is vitally important and is something Achilles said the fire department is hoping to spread throughout the many businesses in the city. He said having one in the gym facility shows Planet Fitness’ commitment to the health and safety of its members.

“We’re very pleased with the fact that Planet Fitness has trained people and has an AED on site,” Achilles said.

For Hendley, the fact that she just saved a man’s life had yet to set in Wednesday.

“I’m more nervous now than I was yesterday,” she said. “Yesterday, I had about two seconds to get down there, and it was game time. I really didn’t have time for the adrenaline to start pumping.”

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According to MD Ambulance, paramedics responded Sunday around 11:20 a.m. to the Agri-Twins Arena, where a 58-year-old man collapsed while playing hockey. The staff at the arena called 911 and then, with the help of a licensed practical nurse who happened to be in the building, defibrillated the man.

When paramedics arrived, the 58 year old was breathing on his own. He was taken by ambulance to Royal University Hospital in stable condition.

“This was a complete team effort and a perfect example of how the chain of survival in cardiac arrests works,” said MD Ambulance spokesperson Troy Davies in a statement.

“From the players recognizing the patient in cardiac arrest, calling 911, MD Ambulance dispatchers talking them through CPR, the rink staff grabbing the AED and shocking the patient, and finally paramedics stabilizing the patient en route to hospital – if one of those links drops, this patient would not have survived.”

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Rob Latham was close to death after collapsing while playing with a group of friends at the Robin Park Powerleague Soccerdome.

The 35-year-old from Reepham Close, Winstanley, was not breathing and his heart had stopped, but he was brought back to life by first aid-trained staff before emergency services arrived.

Resuscitation techniques, including the in-house defibrillator, had to be used twice before the professionals took over.

Family of Mr Latham have been maintaining a bedside vigil at Wigan Infirmary since he suffered the cardiac arrest at 8.30pm on Monday, during a privately-organised match at the Stadium Way centre.

His condition is now said to be stable.

Dave McNally, community resuscitation manager for North West Ambulance Service, said: “Thanks to the quick actions of trained staff and a public Automated External Defibrillator (AED) machine – which was placed there as part of the Community Resuscitation Scheme spearheaded by the North West Ambulance Service – the patient was shocked twice and successfully resuscitated before being transported to hospital.

“This incident highlights the importance of quick intervention when an individual goes into cardiac arrest, and supports NWAS’s aim to have defibrillators placed in all public areas where there is an increased risk of cardiac arrest.

“The trust has trained all Powerleague staff in the North West in resuscitation techniques, and has installed defibrillators in all of their sites for occasions such as this.

“When there is a need to use them, it can be a frightening time for all concerned, but the staff in Powerleague Wigan acted extremely professionally and remembered their training well.”

Firefighters from Wigan were attending a skip fire behind the DW Stadium at the time, and were flagged down by someone at the Soccerdome.

Watch manager Michael Wilding said: “Fire Service trauma technicians rushed to the scene, where we found staff at the centre administering first-aid.

“When we arrived, staff at the centre where doing a remarkable job, with trained first-aiders at the scene.

“I have little doubt the man’s condition would have been far worse if those staff hadn’t been trained in first-aid.

A Powerleague spokesman said: “Powerleague are proud of how the staff at our Wigan branch responded to this emergency on Monday night, we are also very thankful for the support we receive from North West Ambulance Service across our branches in the area.

“Our best wishes and thoughts are with the player and his family.”

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Roy Tousley collapsed at Galleria Dallas on Oct. 27. In a matter of minutes, his friend had started CPR.

A doctor walking by intervened next and began compressions.

Mall security then arrived and gave him two shocks with an AED, but Tousley was still in danger.

Dallas Fire-Rescue Engine 20 was first on the scene and took over, continuing CPR and using the defibrillator. By the time firefighters got Tousley to Medical City Dallas he was breathing on his own and stable.

“This is an awesome outcome, we’re very happy to see it. We don’t get to see it enough,” said Jay Prigmore the driver, engineer and paramedic for Engine 20.

Tousley and his wife stopped by the fire house on Wednesday to say thank you to rescuers.

“I came to the fire station to give my very best to these gentlemen that saved my life,” said Tousley.

“We need to get defibrillators in every public place that we can,” said Myrna Tousley. “We need everybody to take a CPR course, that’s crucial.”