One morning, Debra Bader and her 53-year-old husband, Chris, were strolling through the woods when suddenly Chris passed out. She initially believed the situation to be hopeless. Because he wasn't moving or making any sounds at all, Bader recalls, "I looked at him and said, 'He's dead.'"
The American Heart Association recommends the general public attend CPR training. Participants are taught the one-minute PSA, which directed listeners to administer very strong chest compressions in the event of cardiac arrest to the beat of the 1970s Bee Gees song "Stayin' Alive," flashed into her head as she snatched the cell phone out of his pocket and dialed 911.
It was like, "Stayin' alive, stayin' alive— take a right here, take a left here— Stayin' alive, stayin' alive— follow this road down here— Stayin' alive, stayin' alive," Bader recalls. "I sang the song and gave directions to the EMTs at the same time."
Before the ambulance arrived and the EMTs shocked her husband's heart with a defibrillator, Bader, who had never taken any CPR training, pumped her husband's chest for 15 minutes.
Chris Bader made it out alive. Bader claims she was astonished to learn that mouth-to-mouth resuscitation is not always necessary to resuscitate a person in cardiac arrest.
It's different from what I learned as a Girl Scout back in 1968, she adds, "and the notion that you have to deliver the compressions so rapidly was news to me."
Doctors at the hospital where her husband received treatment, according to Bader, had a different song.
Another One Bites the Dust, which also contains roughly 100 beats per minute, is the song they told me they perform CPR to, according to Bader.
Does Bader enjoy the song "Stayin' Alive" given that "doctors have somewhat of a grim sense of humor"? I do now, "she replies.