Doug Bison

Friday Harbor, WA

On the morning of May 12, 2004, award-winning Native American sculptor Doug Bison died — and lived to tell about it. Doug had been working at Jimmy’s Paradise Café, when he suffered a sudden cardiac arrest mid-stride and fell to the floor, sending the plate he had been carrying crashing through a tabletop. Fortunately for Doug, the fire chief and a volunteer EMT were nearby in the popular café and rushed to his aid. Using an Automated External Defibrillator (AED), which they were trained to use just the night before, the rescuers administered a shock and brought Doug back to life within four and a half minutes of his collapse. Doug was then airlifted to St. Joseph Hospital in Bellingham, where his doctor proclaimed him to be one very lucky man. “It’s a classic story of being in the right place at the right time,” says Doug, who has joined the Cardiac Arrest Survivor Network and become a strong advocate of placing AED devices in public places for just such an emergency. Without the prompt administration of electric shock, the survival rate for victims of sudden cardiac arrest drops to less than 5 percent.

San Juan Island EMS (Friday Harbor, WA) to
St. Joseph Hospital (Bellingham, WA)