SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. — An emotional day took place at Spokane Valley Fire Station 10 as a man who survived cardiac arrest in August got to thank the first responders who saved his life.
Kevin Snider and his daughter visited on Friday morning, experiencing an encounter quite different from when Snider first met these firefighters. During that traumatic incident, he couldn’t reach his phone, so he used his smartwatch to call 911.
“I couldn’t breathe and started going through a little bit of a panic, you know, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t talk,” Snider said.
The whole incident was captured on Ring camera video. Firefighters responded within minutes and found Snider without a pulse. Through CPR, crews were able to bring back a heartbeat.
“I felt that I needed to come down here and thank them,” Snider said.
His daughter, J’me Mitchell, expressed her gratitude to the first responders.
“I’m incredibly grateful for them. There’s no way he wouldn’t be alive. There’s a lot of things in play that make it so I had my dad today,” Mitchell said.
The reunion was also emotional for those who saved Snider. Jacob Parsloe, a firefighter paramedic with SVFD, said the meeting had a serious impact on him.
“I’ve been a part of multiple saves where someone goes on to a positive outcome. But I’ve never gotten to meet someone who I was a part of, who I was there,” Parsloe said.
The incident underscores the importance of calling 911 immediately and quick CPR, as it can mean life or death.
“Every minute that goes by without bystander CPR, their chances of survival, they say, decrease by about 10%. And so, because he was able to get early notification using his watch to call 911, we were able to respond and begin resuscitation,” Parsloe said.
For Snider, this acted as a reminder to always have an emergency plan in place. Whether that is an emergency response service like Life Alert, or a smartwatch like his.
“You won’t catch me without my watch fully charged anymore,” Snider said. “Makes me feel good knowing that they’ve been proven their worth.”
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