An off-duty nurse educator is being hailed a hero by the family of a man she saved.
Bob Kury was walking down a stretch of Arbour Lake Way in Calgary on April 5th when he suddenly collapsed from a heart attack.
“I don’t remember much about the walk at all or the moments before falling. there was no warning,” the 77-year-old said.
Hayley Lane, an off duty nurse-educator just happened to be driving by.
“I was coming home from work and I saw feet on the ground,” she said, pointing to the tiny patch of lawn where Kury had fallen face-first. “I have a CPR mask on my key chain so I pulled it out and was able to give Bob some breaths. He was on a good hard surface so I was getting really good recoil.”
Lane and eventually another mystery man worked on Kury until paramedics rushed him to hospital.
“I think I was on his chest within 2 minutes,” Lane explains, which is very lucky for Kury given the statistics.
Each minute that goes by where a patient goes without CPR the chance of survival goes down.
“Our chance of survival goes down eight to 10 per cent every minute,” says First Aid Training Calgary chief executive officer Ben Marasco, who encourages people to become certified every three years. “80 per cent of cardiac arrests happen at home… We’re more likely to give CPR to a loved one than a co-worker.”
Stats also show that just 20 per cent of those trained are likely to stop and help.
“I have a lot of skill sets as a nurse this is a skill everyone can do. Everyone can and should know how to do CPR. and be prepared,” says Lane.
Lane didn’t know Kury had survived. A week went by and she posted to the community Facebook page searching for answers. Kury’s daughter messaged her back.
“I said, ‘what? he’s alive?’ I had no idea. Then she sent me some pictures of him and he was three floors below me in the cardiac unit and it was just surreal to know and to see life behind those eyes.”
The Kury’s will celebrate 50 years of marriage in July.
“It’d be a shame if I had missed it,” laughs Kury who clearly still has his sense of humour.
His wife Joanne is also looking forward to the celebration, with plans to give CPR keychain masks as party favours and inviting Hayley Lane as the guest of honour.
“We’ll see if we can organize a CPR workshop,” says Joanne Kury thoughtfully.
And when she’s given the suggestion that Lane will make the perfect teacher? “You bet!” she says with a grin. “She’s part of our family now.”
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