”I was dead,” says Tom Davison, a Twin Cities, Minneapolis firefighter.

His wife, Kathy, also a firefighter, laid him out on the floor after he suddenly collapsed in their kitchen and then she and her daughter, Sarah, began administering CPR. They also called 911.

Tom’s brother, John, another firefighter, answered the call. Luckily, he brought a Cardiac Science AED along with him. “It shocked him the first time,” says Kathy, “and then called for no shock. Then it shocked him three more successive times. And then we got him back.”