Michael Isayan had just retrieved an errant soccer ball when he spotted his father, Edvard Isayan, lying on the ground in the middle of the soccer field. Only a minute or so earlier, Edvard had scored a goal during the Saturday morning pickup game at a Los Angeles park. After that kick, he bent over as if trying to catch his breath.
Michael, 14 at the time, asked his dad if he was OK; he insisted he was, and the game continued. Now, other adults from the soccer game and passersby were huddled around Edvard, who wasn't moving. He also wasn't breathing.
The chain of survival played out perfectly: Someone called 911, someone ran to fetch lifeguards from the nearby pool, and a man in the group started chest compressions. Michael didn't have any first aid or CPR training, but he remembered hearing something about tilting an unresponsive person's head back to open the airway. It felt worth a try.
As the man doing chest compressions grew fatigued and a second man took over, Michael began breathing air into his father as best he could. I have to help, he thought. Two lifeguards arrived with an automated external defibrillator, or AED, a portable device that issues electric shocks to the heart to restore a normal rhythm.
The lifeguards shocked Edvard and forced air into his lungs via a hand pump (a bag valve mask device) until paramedics arrived. His heart still didn't have a sustainable rhythm. When the paramedics took over the rescue effort, Michael called his mother, Liana Amelova,.