ATLANTA — If you’ve always wanted to be a hero, but you’re not a doctor, EMT or officer, how about getting trained in CPR?
This week was national CPR and AED training week. As Channel 2′s Lori Wilson found out, training only takes a couple of hours that can literally save a life.
CPR saved the life of former pilot Matt Clark.
“About six, five hours into the flight when we were over Canada, I had a cardiac arrest and died,” Clark said.
Thankfully that wasn’t the end of his story. The active 40-something has a wife and two young children.
When he had a cardiac arrest midflight, his co-pilot, Capt. Te Lee put his CPR training into action.
“If my fellow pilots didn’t know CPR and there wasn’t an AED readily available, there’s basically zero chance that I would be alive today,” Clark said.
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Lee told Clark he thinks he was dead for 8-10 minutes. CPR and AED training sustained him until they could get Clark to doctors in Canada.
“I thought I was in the category of someone who was doing everything they could to live a long and healthy life,” Clark said.
In another case just a few weeks ago, scary bodycam video shows an officer saving the life of a 4-month-old baby in Atlanta using CPR.
“I think a lot of us are under the impression that it’s not going to happen to me or someone I know, and unfortunately, that just isn’t the case,” Clark said.
According to the American Heart Association, about 70% of heart attacks happen at home.
For Clark, it happened in the sky and while he can no longer do the job he loves, his new mission is encouraging everyone to get trained in CPR.
“I’m home every night to get to see the kids, watch them grown up, be a part of their lives and that’s a tradeoff I would take any day of the week,” Clark said.
Clark is back to running and hiking. He has no physical limitations, but he cannot legally pilot a plane.
You can find CPR classes near you by CLICKING HERE.
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