“My heart had stopped beating.”

I tend to push myself in most everything I do — whether it’s running the family business, participating in the community or doing recreational sports. In my mid-40s, I had upped my game health-wise, lost 20 lb. and reduced my sodium intake. My blood pressure and cholesterol have always been fine. Even so, I felt that my energy had started to decline. Sometimes I’d get dizzy when I got up too quickly. I chalked it up to aging. 

I was on my way to a wedding in India and had landed in Toronto to catch a connecting flight. I ran across the airport with my carry-on bag on my shoulder. I was waiting in line to board when I bent down to put something in my bag. I stood up, got dizzy and collapsed. The next thing I remember is waking up on a stretcher being loaded into the back of an ambulance. My heart had stopped beating; I had a cardiac arrest. 

Lucky for me, four women — total strangers — stepped up immediately to help out, performing CPR on me. One of the women was a trained medic and she found an AED (automated external defibrillator) nearby and used it to shock my heart into restarting. I was revived by the time EMS arrived to take me to the nearest hospital specializing in cardiac care. After one day in ICU, I had surgery to correct three severely blocked arteries. My doctor thought that a piece of plaque broke off when I was running through the airport and that may have led to my cardiac arrest. 

When I returned home to Gimli, Manitoba, I met with my cardiologist and slowly started returning to activities like walking, cycling and playing hockey. I feel great now, and all I take is a low-dose Aspirin and cholesterol medication. 

Now that I’m on the Heart & Stroke advisory board in Manitoba, I am well aware of how truly fortunate I was that day. Statistically, nine out of 10 people who experience cardiac arrest outside of a hospital setting, like I did, die. The quick action of those four bystanders made the difference. They saved my life.

• Learn CPR and how to use an AED