When 15-year-old high school student Shelby witnessed her grandfather (78) suffer a heart attack, she wasn’t about to let him become a statistic. About 9 out of 10 people who suffer cardiac arrest will die, but Shelby had learned CPR just days before her grandfather toppled over backwards and quit breathing.

Shelby told her grandmother to call 911, and the rest is a blur. The 911 operator talked Shelby through the process, and for what seemed like an hour until paramedics arrived, Shelby delivered chest compressions.

ER doctor and medical director for Fire Distric 4, Dr. Joel Edminster said, “This is a perfect example of sudden cardiac arrest that would have resulted in a fatality or severe neurological dysfunction” had Shelby not acted as quickly as she did and performed CPR.

Shelby was the first teen community save.

“I kind of went into hysteria, panic,” said Shelby’s grandmother, “and she just kept her cool. She said she was really churning on the inside, but you would have never known it.”

He was technically dead.His heart had stopped beating.His clothes were burning. And two bystanders started CPR on the 12-year-old boy, saving his life.

Today, Ken Nilson is a firefighter in Bremerton, Washington.

“It was an experience that would profoundly change my life forever,” explains Nilson.

He makes it a point to teach young children ways they can help save lives with CPR. His mission is to help as many people as possible have the same chance he had.

After all, says Nilson,“they could be saving my life again.”

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn set a standard all states should emulate when he signed a bill requiring Illinois high school students to have mandatory CPR and defibrillator training.

The CPR bill was introduced to lawmakers by several families who had high school aged children that experienced cardiac emergencies while on campus.

The law allows students to opt out, but we believe everyone should know how to administer some form of CPR and how to operate a defibrillator.

As Governor Quinn put it, “ This common-sense law will make sure they are better prepared to help their classmates, teachers, family and friends in case of an emergency.”