Quick action by apartment tenant helps save Crestview man’s life

CRESTVIEW — Halley O’Rourke was not sure if her husband would survive after he suffered a massive heart attack.

O’Rourke was at home with her husband, 34-year-old Josh Duke, at the Brentwood Apartments on Nov. 9 when the attack caused her husband to go into cardiac arrest.

“I was completely and utterly terrified,” O’Rourke said. “I thought my whole world has just crashed down on top of me.”

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O’Rourke quickly ran outside and screamed for someone to call 911 before rushing back in to begin CPR.

A few moments later, two apartment tenants, Haley Head and Kimber Richards, rushed in to help. Head, who is CPR-certified, took over CPR while Richards remained on the phone with 911 until paramedics arrived.

“That was my first time ever performing CPR on a human,” Head said. “It was just instinct. I knew what I was supposed to do and I did it.”

After paramedics arrived, they were able to revive Josh despite him not breathing for 10 minutes. He was then sent to Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola where he spent two days unresponsive in the intensive care unit.

“They were worried about brain damage and told me to prepare for the worst,” O’Rourke said.

Despite the doctors’ concerns, Josh underwent a quintuple bypass and was awake and moving around a day later, showing no signs of brain damage. He was released from the hospital on Nov. 21 and will spend six to eight weeks out of work.

O’Rourke is thankful that the journey is ending with only a few weeks of missed work.

“At the moment (of the incident) I was thankful for some help,” O’Rourke said. “After the whole initial shock wore off, I couldn’t be more thankful having them so quick to respond because if it was just me, it probably would not have turned out the way it did.”

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Quick action by apartment tenant helps save Crestview man’s life