With today being Happy Heart Day, I thought the timing would be right to share the following with you…

A few months ago, my father suffered a heart attack.  Or more accurately, a sudden cardiac arrest.  Despite having “the heart of a forty-year-old,” for some unknown reason, his heart stopped beating.  And quite bluntly, he would have died where he fell on the golf course that day, except for the series of miracles large and small that followed – the most important of which was that his golf partners, despite having never received formal CPR training, performed it on my father anyway.  Performed imperfectly and under extreme duress, it was nonetheless effective enough to keep my father’s blood pumping until the Emergency Responders arrived with a defibrillator.

Would you be prepared to save the life of someone’s father? (or mother, or spouse, or sibling, or a friend, or…, or…, or…).  Would you at least be willing to try?  If you don’t already know how to do it, then take time today to learn how to do Hands-Only CPR and how to use an Automated External Defibrillator (AED).  [A special thanks to Dr. Robertson for having sent these two links in her Christmas card.]

So…today I’m wishing you a Happy HEART Day.  Please, pass it on.

P.S.  Hi, Dad.  I ♥ YOU!!!