A Richmond man has three quick thinking lifeguards to thank for saving his life.
Simon Tsang has been using the Minoru Aquatic Centre for almost 16 years.
On December 18 of last year, he suffered a sudden cardiac arrest just five minutes before the pool closed.
“All of a sudden I could see nothing, and then I don’t know what happened,” says Tsang.
Lifeguards Kai Favrholdt, Leah Wait and Mitchell Beavis came to his aid, performing CPR and applying the automatic external defibrillator before the paramedics arrived.
Tsang went on to have a full recovery.
Today, the efforts of the lifeguards were recognized with the BC Ambulance Service Vital Link Award.
B.C. paramedics attend between 2,400-2,800 sudden cardiac arrests a year.
The best chance at survival is immediate CPR: a cardiac arrest victim is four times more likely to survive if they receive CPR from a bystander.
In approximately 85 per cent of all cardiac arrest cases, this basic procedure is not performed.
“As a city we decided that we wanted to have defibrillators in our public facilities,” said Richmond mayor Malcolm Brodie. “Now, we have some 39 of them around Richmond. Since we started that program, this is the first time that we had to use it in an emergency situation. From my point of view, saving the life of just one person made that investment minuscule.”
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