Yesterday was Labor Day, and I wrote about the importance of all kinds of work and all kinds of workers. Here’s an example: what image comes to mind when you think “computer programmers”? What do they do? What kind of contribution do they make?

Of course, what I’m doing right now wouldn’t be possible unless some set of computer programmers wrote the code for WordPress which runs on the internet, made possible by other programmers. Their work is everywhere. Cars, appliances, watches, phones,…

But I was struck by an unusual application, unknown to me, while reading a story from UCHealth. “Greeley father of three survives sudden cardiac arrest at parent-daughter basketball event thanks to AED and CPR.”

AED and CPR. We all recognize CPR, and most of us have seen AEDs hanging on the walls of public spaces.

The UCHealth Story’s subtitle is:

What started as a fun school basketball game turned into a life-or-death emergency — and a powerful reminder of how critical AEDs can be.

The article opens:

A few months ago, the 38-year-old Greeley dad of three was running down the court at a parent-daughter basketball game at a school gym. The next thing he remembered, he was being transported to the hospital after suffering — and minutes later being saved from — a life-threatening cardiac arrest.

The article continues:

Dave had experienced a ventricular fibrillation arrest, a life-threatening abnormal heart rhythm that starts in the lower chambers of the heart. Instead of beating steadily, the ventricles quiver and lose their ability to pump blood through the rest of the body, cutting off its supply to the brain and vital organs.

Without emergency treatment, sudden cardiac arrest can lead to brain and organ damage — or death — very quickly. With each passing minute, a person’s chance of survival decreases by about 10%.

To save his life, Dave needed immediate defibrillation, an electric “shock” from an AED, which stands for automated external defibrillator. When someone experiences ventricular fibrillation, shocking the heart, along with CPR, is the only way to restore the heart’s regular rhythm.

Fortunately, there was an off-duty firefighter, Alonso Gallardo, in the crowd, and someone brought him the AED while he was checking on Dave.

While someone called 911, a school staff member ran to get the portable AED mounted outside the gym door and got it to Gallardo, who had rushed to Dave’s side. While Gallardo’s daughter performed hands-only CPR, the firefighter removed Dave’s shirt and placed one of the pads on his upper right chest and the other on his lower left chest.

The AED provides voice commands with step-by-step instructions, instructing users on the exact steps they need to take as the machine reads and analyzes a patient’s heart vitals within seconds. It also advises bystanders on whether to continue CPR.

“You don’t touch the patient, but let the AED advise you what to do,” Gallardo said.

As the defibrillator analyzed Dave’s heart data, it told Gallardo to defibrillate, or shock him, by pressing a button, and to continue with CPR. The AED instantly monitored Dave’s response to the shock, and after a minute, it announced that he needed another shock.

“After the second shock, he regained consciousness and started to breathe and move around, so we stopped what we were doing and let him breathe on his own,” Gallardo said.

Did you catch it? I had no idea… The AED gives you voice instructions on what to do. It told Gallardo to shock the heart and continue CPR. A minute later, it told him to shock the heart again.

This machine was not built by doctors! It was built by engineers and programmed by the same guys who taught Alexa how to talk, play music, tell you the weather, and other trivial things.

Amazing. All kinds of work. All kinds of workers. God bless computer programmers.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2.10, ESV)