LAURA Morrow never dreamed she would have to save her husband's life, but one night last November she was forced to do just that.
The North Vancouver resident woke at about 3 a.m. Nov. 23 to the sound of her husband, Craig Berry, gurgling.
At first she thought it was snoring, but something didn't sound right.
Turning on the light, she found him unconscious with his eyes rolled back in his head, gasping for breath. Berry had just entered cardiac arrest. Every second was critical.
Morrow called 911 and started CPR. Today, thanks to her actions, Berry has made a complete recovery.
Morrow had never taken a CPR lesson in her life - it was the 9-1-1 operator who talked her through it in a steady, calm voice.
"She had me count as I was doing this. She had me count out loud so she could hear," said Morrow.
"Initially I wasn't doing it fast enough so she said: 'Faster.' I think I reached the count of around 20 or 25, and Craig started to again try to take a long intake of breath in."
On Friday, Morrow had the chance to meet Jen Lencoe, the woman who answered her call in person, as she accepted a Vital Link medal, an award that's been handed out for the past four years to people who use CPR to save the life of someone suffering cardiac arrest.
It was an intense, emotional meeting.
"I cried," said Morrow. "I cried a lot because not only were her instructions so clear and so helpful, but the sound of her voice, too, at the time. That's what I was looking most forward to today was meeting her."
While Berry has said since then that his wife saved his life, Morrow herself said she has never really felt like she had a hand in it.
She hopes, however, that the award will help give her closure.
"I still relive it. There's times I have no control; it's there; it's in my mind," she said. "We just feel like we can move on now and put the whole thing behind us."
Six other recipients also received awards at last week's ceremony, organized by the B.C. Ambulance Service.
Cassandra Leonhardt and Candace Bateson of North Vancouver were recognized for their efforts on April 25, when the two stumbled into Heather Schamehorn and Daryle Rajala desperately trying to help an 18-year-old man who had collapsed in Loutet Park.
The four of them took turns providing CPR and giving mouth-to-mouth until the ambulance arrived several minutes later.
Bateson had taken a CPR course in high school five years before, a skill she was thankful for that day.
"They always tell you it's good to have, that you never know when you'll need it, but you never expect to need it," she said. "Somehow things just came back to me . . . even through all the shakiness and the adrenaline."
The experience convinced Bateson to go back and get recertified, something she had been intending to do.
"That happened and I thought: 'I have to, there's no more waiting around.'"
Only 15 per cent of cardiac arrest victims receive emergency CPR, according to the B.C. Ambulance Service, and the survival rate is about the same.
Seattle, in comparison, has about a 20 per cent survival rate, which BCAS superintendent Randy Hansen attributes at least partly to a very robust CPR program.
He hopes stories like these will encourage more local residents to take a course.
"The public doesn't really realize it, but they say the majority of cardiac arrests happen in the home, so it's really beneficial for all family members to learn," said Hansen.
