I was driving home from a client meeting, feeling unusually tired but chalking it up to stress. As I pulled into the driveway, everything went silent—then black. My daughter saw me slump over the steering wheel and screamed for help. My neighbor, a retired nurse, rushed over and pulled me out of the car. She performed CPR right there on the pavement until the EMTs arrived and shocked me back to life with a defibrillator. They said every second counted—and I got lucky.

I spent the next few weeks in the cardiac unit, hooked up to wires and machines, trying to piece together what had happened. It wasn’t a heart attack—it was sudden cardiac arrest. No warning, no build-up. Just an electrical glitch that could’ve ended me. After surgery to implant a defibrillator and weeks of cardiac rehab, I finally walked out of that hospital a different man.

Now, I check in on my health like I check the weather. I speak at local workshops and schools, telling folks that CPR isn’t just a medical skill—it’s a superpower. I’m alive because someone knew how to use it. And I owe every breath to that moment when my neighbor chose not to hesitate.

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