‘I’m calm’

‘ m K odie said, ‘I remember one episode of House where Hugh Laurie was doing CPR, and I copied that. You have to get through a lot of flesh and bones before you get to the heart. ‘I’m quite a clearheaded person, and like to stay calm. I knew panicking w

Kodie kept Barry alive using CPR she’d seen on House

know what to do. I didn’t want to hurt Barry.

‘Look, I’ve seen it on House,’ Kodie told me, handing me the phone, so she could take over the CPR.

Kodie carried on pumping Barry’s chest hard for 15 minutes, as I spoke to the paramedics. Her arms were like jelly, her knees bruised.

As I took over again, she sat next to me, instructing ‘1-2-3’ for every compression.

I was crying and panicking, but Kodie kept really calm throughout.

It was 18 minutes after we rang 999 when the First Response team turned up.

We watched as nine paramedics worked on Barry. There was a tube in his throat and a huge machine on his chest for the compressions.

‘Don’t leave me, Dad,’ Kodie was pleading.

Barry was flown by air ambulance to Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro, while we followed in the car.

Arriving, the receptionist held my hand and said we had to go to the relatives’ room. My heart sank. We’ve lost him, I thought. However, it wasn’t the bad news that I was dreading.

‘Barry’s alive, but he’s in an induced coma,’ the doctor explained to us. We were told he might have

brain damage.

But he was still with us.

Kodie and I stayed by his bedside for five days, desperate for him to open his eyes.

When Barry finally came round, a week after the cardiac arrest, he was very disorientated.

His short-term memory was wiped out, and he was having hallucinations and being uncharacteristically aggressive.

But before long, Barry was back to his normal self.

On 12 June, Barry was fitted with an implantable cardioverterdefibrillator (ICD), which means if his heart stops again, it’ll be started up again automatically by the device.

The next day, he finally came home.

It was the first time we’d told him that Kodie had saved his life.

‘I knew how to do CPR from watching all those episodes of House,’ she explained to him.

Barry broke down in tears, absolutely speechless.

What do you say to someone who’s just saved your life?

We all cried and hugged each other with relief.

Barry’s still unsteady on his feet, and may need to be on beta-blockers for the rest of his life, but the main thing is that he’s still here with us.

The consultant said it was a miracle he’d made it, and it was all down to Kodie keeping him alive using CPR in those first, crucial minutes.

We’re so proud of her. As far as we’re concerned, she can watch as much House as she wants!