During an ordinary day in August, 2016, New York businessman Jeff Feig was vacationing with his family in the Pine Lake Park bungalow colony in Cortlandt Manor, New York. Suddenly, with no warning, he collapsed, having suffered a massive heart attack. The chances are high, that if it weren’t for his fellow bungalow colony residents training and presence of mind, Jeff Feig would not have survived.  His wife Michelle & their 3 young sons would have been left to cope with this loss.

But Jeff Feig did survive, and this is why: his neighbors at the colony had training in CPR and the use of what is known as an automated external defibrillator, also called an AED. When Feig collapsed the people around him kept cool and helped him so efficiently that not only did Feig survive, he suffered no damage to his heart or to his brain.

Four people came to his aid: one called an ambulance; another administered mouth-to-mouth ventilation to keep oxygen flowing into his body; a third did chest compressions to keep his heart pumping blood throughout his body; and a fourth ran to get the AED to re-boot Feig’s heart. Ten minutes later the ambulance arrived, a length of time that would have been too late for the brain, which cannot survive lack of oxygen for more than four minutes.

Since that fateful day, Feig, who spent over 25 years in the financial sales and trading industry, has been spending much of his time promoting CPR training and purchasing of AED machines to be placed in public places. What is so amazing about Feig’s rescue from death is that the four laypeople who saved him had just had CPR and AED training only two weeks prior to his heart attack. This fact serves to underscore the urgency that more people from all walks of life are trained in this life-saving procedure.