During a CPR lesson, the instructor has a heart attack and his students save him

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Initially, Karl Arps was just pretending, imitating a patient with chest pain as he tested his emergency medical technician students. But minutes into the March 25 demonstration, the lesson abruptly stopped being a simulation.

Arps — an EMT instructor at Fox Valley Technical College in Appleton, Wisconsin — began gasping for air before losing consciousness. At first, students thought he was still faking it. “I heard him making snoring-sounding respirations. My initial thought was that this was a new symptom,” said Logan Lehrer, 26, a firefighter who is training as an EMT. “About 10 seconds went by and I had a feeling in my stomach this was not part of a scenario, this was starting to feel real.”

In fact, Arps was experiencing a heart attack that led to cardiac arrest. As the practice training became a real emergency, students summoned another instructor for help. They moved Arps out of the mock ambulance and onto the open floor, knowing CPR needs to be performed on a hard surface. Several students took turns doing chest compressions, rotating every two minutes, while another retrieved an automated external defibrillator and someone else called 911. Others cleared space and directed first responders when they arrived.

The students followed the protocol Arps had taught them called the Chain of Survival. By the time paramedics arrived, Arps had regained a pulse. “They followed it to the exact minute,” Arps said. “Like they’re trained to do.” Arps, 72, has worked as an EMT for 25 years and has spent nearly two decades training future first responders. He said he had never been previously diagnosed with heart disease and had not experienced any warning signs — such as shortness of breath or chest pain — leading up to the incident. “I would get tired easily, but I just thought it’s part of getting older,” he said. As the simulation began, Arps remembers feeling slightly dizzy, but he didn’t think anything serious was wrong.

There were about 30 minutes left in class when his heart stopped. “A half an hour later, I’d be driving home,” Arps said. “If it had happened then, forget it.”