b'8Why CARES Matters:A Story of Survival from OHCAA Twenty-Seven-Year-Old Sudden Cardiac Arrest Survivor Makes it her Lifes Mission to Improve Cardiac Arrest Survival By Lynn Blake, Founder of Starting Hearts, Eagle-Vail, CO Lynn and Matt Blake hosted a fairytale wedding in Vail, Colorado followed by a harmonious vacation to the British Virgin Islands. The furthest thing from newlyweds minds was the thought of one of them experiencing sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). February 14, 2007 will always be etched in their brain. Not because of some fancy proposal or bouquets of roses from a special Valentineit was the day Lynns heart stopped beating.At the young age of 27, she suffered sudden cardiac arrest. It was only her second day on a new job, so no one even knew who she was.Everyone stood stunned and unsure of how to respond. An apparently healthy young woman could not be having a life-threatening cardiac event; they first thought that she was having a seizure, but quickly realized that something more serious was happening and yelled for someone to call 9-1-1 and perform Newlyweds Lynn & Matt Blake on their honeymoon at St. Kitts Island.CPR.Her heart stopped beating, blood was not pumping, and without the help from strangers, she was dead. Fortunately, emergency responders were called, a nearby woman quickly started compressions while another man gave breaths. The Vail Fire Department was right across the street, so they ran over and continued quality CPR. Paramedics arrived minutes later and used a defibrillator to deliver three shocks to her chest and restart her heart. She was unconscious for several days following the SCA, and when she finally awoke Lynn had an implanted pacemaker defibrillator and absolutely no recollection of what had happened. Doctors explained that she was one of the fortunate few to actually survive sudden cardiac arrest, and said that the only reason she was alive was because of bystander CPR and the use of a defibrillator.There was no definite reason for the arrest and the reality of her situation was perplexing. She returned home eleven days later and tried to resume a normal life. Sudden cardiac arrest was something that Lynn had heard of but most likely generalized as a heart attack. Taking a CPR course was something she never got around to doing. And defibrillators were something she had seen rubbed together on TV. This prompted Lynn to question why so many people are unaware of this condition that almost took her life. She began researching and found that cardiac arrest is much more common than she had ever imagined. SCA is the nations leading cause of unexpected death, and its on the rise. Of the estimated 400,000 Americans that experience an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest per year, only 10% will survive. Despite its high death rate, SCA can be reversed in most cases through immediate CPR and defibrillation. A persons chances of survival decreases by 10% with every minute that passes without CPR and defibrillation, and it takes'