On a sweltering summer day last year, just four days after my father's 73rd birthday, our family's life changed in an instant. Mum was dishing up dinner while Dad complained about the heat from the sofa. I had planned to go to work as a personal trainer but decided to take the evening off. That decision proved fateful: as I turned back to Mum, Dad collapsed backwards, suffering a massive cardiac arrest.
Mum was hysterical. She dialled 999 while I tried to stay calm, but inside I felt mad with fear as she relayed the call handler's instructions. 'Check if he's breathing,' she told me. I placed my hand on his chest but felt nothing. 'Move him to the floor.' I laid him on the wooden flooring.
The call handler instructed Mum to begin CPR. Dad lay motionless as she pushed on his chest. I had attended first-aid training years ago while working at a bowling alley, but remembered nothing. Something seemed off, though—the timing wasn't right. Then, a memory surfaced: The Office.
Specifically, I recalled a scene from the US series where Steve Carell's character, Michael Scott, learns to demonstrate CPR on a dummy to the tune of the Bee Gees' 'Stayin' Alive'. The episode, Stress Relief, is one of the show's best, featuring a chaotic cold opening where Dwight triggers a fire alarm, causing Stanley to have a heart attack. After Stanley recovers, a CPR trainer advises that the rhythm of 'Stayin' Alive' matches the ideal compression rate. In my parents' living room, the crucial part jumped into my mind: 'Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah' to compress Dad's chest, then rest on 'stayin' alive'.
I took over from Mum and played the scene and song in my head for 13 minutes, trying to resuscitate Dad. My arms grew tired, but occasional murmurs let me know he was still with us. I had no intention of stopping.
When paramedics arrived and took over, they asked, 'Who did the CPR?' 'Me,' I said. 'You've done a brilliant job; you may have saved his life,' they told me. As I stepped outside for air, I thought, 'They probably tell everyone that.' I believed I had done everything I could, but never imagined Dad would pull through.
He did, though. He spent 57 days in a coma and four months in hospital, undergoing multiple surgeries. I visited every day. Medics would ask, 'How did you learn CPR?' And I told them, 'The Office.'
I am a huge TV and film fan, especially superhero movies. I have watched most of The Office three or four times; I find it comforting, and Carell nails the cringe factor. Stress Relief is one of the best episodes: it takes something so mundane and makes it hilarious. That is what made me remember it that day.
Just like in The Office, where the team rallied after Stanley's heart attack, members of the gym where I work came together. It is near the hospital, and many were involved in Dad's care: one was an anaesthetist, one performed his tracheostomy, and another provided speech and language therapy. He is almost back to full health now, but his recovery was rough.
Without that episode of The Office, I genuinely do not think I could have performed CPR the way I did. I am not alone: in 2019, a man in Arizona saved a woman's life by breaking into her car, pulling her out, and delivering chest compressions to the tune of 'Stayin' Alive'.
At Dad's checkups, doctors still mention it. One of the medics I train recently messaged from a course to say, '9% of people survive cardiac arrest out of hospital; most go on to die, which puts your story into perspective.' After all the superhero movies I have watched, it is funny to think that Steve Carell and The Office helped deliver my heroics.
