Among the skates and sticks and water bottles, a group of old timer West Okanagan hockey players keeps a very special piece of equipment on the bench.
The defibrillator cost the players $1400 but its value turned out to be priceless.
Last month, Dennis Savage, 64, had a heart attack and dropped dead to the ice in total cardiac arrest.
“Bill Koch and I rolled Dennis over. There was no pulse, no breath,” says teammate Steve Berry.
The two men began CPR, and with the help of other players, revived Savage with three shocks from the defibrillator.
“Within 13 minutes we had him breathing and talking, before the ambulance arrived. It was pretty spectacular,” says Koch.
Every year, some of the players in the group are trained in CPR and defibrillator use while others take a refresher course.
“We’re not medically trained but we took some training and look what happened, we got our buddy back,” says Berry.
About a week after the heart attack, Savage had quadruple bypass surgery and is doing well.
He won’t let the near fatal incident stop him from lacing up the skates again.
“They said I should be back playing hockey in September.”
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