“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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The heart attack victim was working out at a health club in Fife, accompanied by four nurses, three of whom work in the same ward.

Ciara Grealis the Saviour

As soon as the man collapsed, the nurses sprang in to action, keeping him alive using CPR and a defibrillator until an ambulance arrived.

The patient was then transported to the nurses’ own hospital, Queen Margaret, Dunfermline.

A defibrillator donated to the club seven years ago by a heart charity was used during the emergency at Bannatyne’s Health Club at Fife Leisure Park.

The man, who has not been named, is said to be recovering.

Queen Margaret staff nurse Heather Bryson was having a work-out in the gym with ward colleagues Katharine Sharpe and Ciara Grealis when the man collapsed.

Also in the gym at the time was a fourth nurse from the Queen Margaret and another health professional.

Heather said: “We were all in the gym when we saw the commotion and a lot of people around the man.

“It just so happened that he collapsed and there were five of us at the gym at the time. We all took turns doing CPR. There were loads of people there.

“We used the defibrillator. The sweat was stopping the pads from sticking. He got shocked twice and it probably helped. It was the shock that the paramedic gave him that worked and got him breathing again.

“You replay it over in your head. We’ve talked about it all the time to make sure we did everything we could. It was just a big relief when he made it.

“I went to see him in hospital and he’s doing well. He’s a lucky man.”

Katharine said, “It was good that there were a few of us because one person couldn’t have kept it up alone until the ambulance arrived.

Scott Niven, the club’s general manager, said, “Our team of trained first aiders came to the member’s aid quickly and efficiently and were assisted by a group of members including health care professionals who were very supportive in the time before the ambulance arrived.

“I want to thank these members for their efforts.

“This was a perfect example of the community atmosphere at the health club.

“We wish the gentleman well with his recovery and look forward to welcoming him back to the club.”

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The 16-year-old student is now recovering in the Intensive Care Unit at Kalispell Regional Medical Center after collapsing during gym class at around 8:30 a.m. Wednesday.

School staff began performing CPR to save his life and then several people, including the athletic trainer and nurse, began using a defibrillator to shock the student and get him breathing.

Three Rivers EMS was on the scene within four minutes and by the time emergency responders got to the student he had a pulse and was breathing on his own.

The student was then taken by ambulance to Kalispell Regional Medical Center and placed in ICU.

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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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Suddenly, while his Grade 9 students practiced CPR on “dummies” in the gym next door, King joined McConnell in a life-or-death first-aid drill. In the precious minutes that followed, they used a real defibrillator and CPR to restore the teen’s pulse before emergency crews arrived.

Today the 17-year-old is recovering, although he does not want his name made public.

“The timing was ironic, because I had just been telling my students how important it is to know CPR, especially with the holidays coming up when they visit with elderly relatives,” King said.

McConnell knows first aid from her days as a lifeguard, and began delivering CPR and mouth-to-mouth as shocked students watched. She had been teaching at the Etobicoke school less than two weeks, yet ironically, one of the first classes she had taught was in CPR.

“It’s amazing because the defibrillator tells you exactly what to do, including what rhythm to use when you compress the chest and when to give air,” McConnell said.

Toronto’s Emergency Medical Services has nominated both teachers as well as hall monitor Linda Armstrong and vice-principal Tim Brethour for EMS Citizens’ awards for quick thinking in fetching the defibrillator, calling 911 and delaying the bell between classes so emergency crews could wheel out the stretcher without having to battle crowds.

“In cardiac arrest, seconds count,” noted EMS acting superintendent Shawn Murphy in a letter of praise to school officials. “Had it not been for the rapid and skilled actions of the staff, the outcome would not have been as positive.”

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Moments later, Alls told his friends to call 911.

“Then I laid back and I looked at the ceiling and I was out,” Alls said.

He was in cardiac arrest.

Rob McCann, one of his friends, started chest compressions, something he had not done in years.

“I remember yelling to the guys, ‘Does anybody know how to do this better?’” McCann said.

Alls was quickly fading.

“I actually looked at his face. It was bluish-gray,” said John Santos. “I thought, we may not be able to get him back.”

Then Santos, an employee at South Shore School, remembered that the school recently installed a defibrillator down the hall.

“That’s when it hit me, we’ve got one of those things that’ll fix him,” Santos said. “So I ran and got it.”

The device started talking to the men, giving them instructions before shocking Alls and getting his heart started.

“His color came back right away,” Hilliard said.

Alls remembers hearing the defibrillator’s voice as he woke up.

“I was like, ‘What was that sound?’” he said. “And while I was conscious, it zapped me another time.”

Paramedics arrived moments later and rushed Alls to the hospital. He underwent angioplasty and is expected to make a full recovery.

Seattle Public Schools installed defibrillators in every school, administrative building and at all 15 outside sports fields at the beginning of the school year. The district collaborated with the Heart of Seattle Schools, a non-profit organization that includes the Seattle Seahawks, Sounders, hospitals and Nick of Time Foundation.

“It saved my life,” Alls said. “I’m here to tell you that was saved by that and I just cannot be more grateful for that.”

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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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The student collapsed and his heart had stopped beating. Three of the district’s coaches, one of whom is a teacher, used an automated external defibrillator to bring back the student’s heartbeat, according to a statement from the district.

The student was transported to the hospital for testing and observation, according to the statement.

“The quick actions and combined efforts of our district coaches saved the student’s life,” wrote Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Lauren Hunter in the statement. “For that, we are grateful for their heroism and the emergency training they received through the district.”

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Grecoe, an Andover resident who lives with his wife Lisa and three daughters, went into sudden cardiac arrest on the morning of Sept. 19 while exercising at the Andover/North Andover YMCA.

Dan Grecoe the Survivor

For about 10 minutes, retired Andover firefighter Richard Hartman and school nurse Rita Casper worked together to perform CPR on Grecoe while YMCA employee Maura Eisenhood used an automatic external defibrillator to help him survive while the paramedics were en route.

“Without Maura and Rita and Richard and this device, I wouldn’t be here with my daughters to celebrate,” Grecoe said, referring to the automatic external defibrillator.

Grecoe was working out at the gym with his friend Paul Davies early on the morning of Sept. 19. He had recently recovered from knee surgery — having his anterior cruciate ligament replaced following a skiing injury — and was given the OK to start running.

He started with the treadmill, running for about six or seven minutes, and said he felt totally winded.

“I chalked that up for not being able to run because of the knee,” Grecoe said.

Grecoe and Davies then switched to the elliptical machines. After about five minutes on the machine, Grecoe started to feel faint.

“I said to (Davies), ‘I’m feeling a little dizzy,’ and that was it,” Grecoe said. “The lights went out.”

Eisenhood, assistant to the sports director at the YMCA and a North Andover resident, said she noticed Grecoe at the gym that morning because he had been using a machine normally taken by another gym regular.

Eisenhood had been wiping down machines when she noticed commotion in his direction. She said when she walked over that she noticed Grecoe was clenching his hands.

“We realized that he was kind of struggling to breathe,” Eisenhood said. “As he was on his side, Rita had come over and said, ‘I’m a registered nurse, I can help.’”

The two sent some other people in the gym to call 911. Hartman, the former deputy chief for the Andover Fire Department, stepped forward to help as well.

Casper, the director of nurses for Andover Public Schools, gave chest compressions while Hartman applied rescue breaths. Eisenhood opened up the defibrillator.

“It tells you what to do,” Eisenhood said. “We followed the directions.”

Eisenhood, 43, has worked at the YMCA branch for six years and has been certified in first aid since high school. She had CPR re-certification at the start of the summer.

“I think I was at ease because I had been trained,” Eisenhood said. “I literally had my hands on the same device months before.”

She applied electric shocks to Grecoe three times while the group worked to keep him alive. Rescue crews arrived and took Grecoe to Lawrence General Hospital, where he has his first memories waking up.

“There’s really no words that can express the gratitude that I have to everyone who came to my aid, from the people at my gym to everybody in Ambulance 1 who responded,” Grecoe said.

Now recovering, Grecoe, a software engineer, has been cleared by his doctors to start walking. He said he hopes to run a 5K race in the future.

Eisenhood said she felt like circumstances aligned for the three to come to Grecoe’s rescue — saving him from a life-threatening situation.

“It just seemed like everything was lined up,” Eisenhood said. “You were at the gym at the right time, Rita was right there, Richard was right there.”

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Staff at the Norfolk Health and Racquets Club, Drayton High Road, rushed to help fitness enthusiast Lyndon Green after he collapsed while he was racing his 13-year-old son on the rowing machine.

Lyndon Green the Survivor

After their swift use of a defibrillator to jump-start his heart back to life he spent two days unconscious in the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital and awoke… just as his grand-daughter Matilda was born.

Mr Green, who runs a social marketing company with his wife Maggie and lives on Mile End Road, to the west of the city, remembers nothing from the episode and had no history of heart failure until that day.

The 44-year-old said: “It was total shock when I found out what had happened as I am a relatively fit guy – I go to the gym twice a week, eat healthily and do all the right things, and then all of a sudden it hits you like a train.”

Now he has been back to thank gym staff for their life-saving efforts. He said: “I was in total awe of the staff and so grateful. It’s one thing training on a dummy but to save someone’s life is admirable.”

Mr Green was halfway through a workout alongside son Fraser when he collapsed, causing Fraser to cry out for help and rush to call an ambulance.

Swift to help him were three members of staff at the club, which is also known as the Esporta gym. These were Luke Matthews, David Loughlin, who performed CPR, and his colleague Helen Barnes, who brought out the centre’s defibrillator, which pumps a high quantity of volts through to the heart.

The sports centre’s general manager Neil Campbell, 39, explained that their swift actions would have been helped by a safety training session two weeks previously, introduced as part of wider safety measures after the gym was taken over by Virgin Active.

Of the life-saving day, which took place in three weeks ago, he said: “I got there just as paramedics arrived and we were standing over what could potentially have been a dead body with five paramedics who were there with him after we got the pulse started.

“It was about keeping everyone calm and trying to be of assistance of everyone who needed it. The gym staff did everything they should and it was an honour watching them save his life.”

Rushed from the scene at around 5.30pm and heavily sedated when he got into hospital, doctors were unsure whether he would make it, or if he would suffer brain damage.

But two days later, on Tuesday September 20 that he awoke – just as his 23-year-old daughter Carly Gerrard was giving birth at her home in Nelson Street, north Norwich.

His wife, Maggie Green was keen to emphasise the importance of defibrillators as a life-saving tool. The 42-year-old had kept vigil at his bedside and spoke of the moment she knew her husband had pulled through.

“He couldn’t speak at first so when he was coming round he rose his finger to let us know he knew where he was. I was holding his hand and said hello and asked if there was any chance he could squeeze it. He did, and it was a great moment.”

She added that they discovered shortly after that Matilda had been born at roughly the same time.

“It was scary at the time but they both came through and it was so exciting too. We didn’t see Matilda till a week later, but it was definitely a strange day.”

Mr Green plans to return to his normal regime within six months. “I’m fairly pragmatic about these things but it does make you how life is fragile and it’s important to have the right priorities. Because of what’s happened I’m looking more closely at the way I live.”