An unidentified man saved the life of a complete stranger last week.

Commuters on the train witnessed a man pass out during the rush hour commute home. Within seconds, the Angel of CPR stepped in and began chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth until the train made it to its’ next stop where paramedics took over.

The victim, a middle-aged man who just celebrated his 60th birthday, is recovering nicely with his wife of 33 years.

The doctors who treated the victim, were impressed with ability of the Angel of CPR, and his reaction time.

The victim’s wife is very grateful and referred to the stranger as a Guardian Angel.

“I really want to give him a big hug and say thank you,” she said. “He saved my husband, the father of my children.”

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6-7%. That’s the national average rate of survival for victims of cardiac arrest who receive CPR. When Wake County EMS responds to cardiac arrest calls, the victims chance of survival more than doubles.

The insider information is simple; research shows that when CPR is provided in excess of 25 minutes, survival rates drastically increase.

The Wake County EMS district chief, Hammerstein, explains,”We were still seeing signs in the patient that had a shot of survival. We chased those signs and found that in fact we were getting responses from people much past the 20 to 25 minutes time zone.”

Once they realized they were on to something, they followed their hunches. Working with SAS Analytics Lab they collected the data and found they were right.

“You can, in fact, resuscitate people and save lives past that 20 to 25 minute time zone and equally important, if we do resuscitate that person, they are just as likely to have a good neurological outcome at those longer times than if it were just in those first few minutes,” Hammerstein said.

The findings are to be published soon.

Be a hero. Learn CPR!