A young Windsor man says it "doesn't feel real" to call himself a heart attack survivor.
Jack Luck was one of 26 survivors who were recognized along with those who helped save them during the Essex-Windsor EMS and Southwest Ontario Regional Base Hospital Program 12th Annual Survivor Day.
The Friday event at the St. Clair Centre for the Arts celebrated survivors of trauma and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in 2024.
On Feb. 8, 2024, the then 18-year-old Luck hadn't been feeling well, but otherwise he was a healthy, active teenager.
He was standing in the kitchen of his family's home talking to his dad when he suddenly passed out.
He would revive, but not long afterwards, his breathing became laboured; he grabbed his chest and passed out again.
This time his eyes rolled to the back of his head; he stopped breathing and had no pulse.
Essex-Windsor EMS paramedics Dawn Hodges and Ljubisa Apostolovski were at the house within minutes of the family calling 911 and were able to resuscitate Jack and rush him to the hospital.
Luck, now 20, says it means the world to him to meet the first responders who saved his life that night.
"Oh, it's just amazing right now. I have all my heart out for this woman. She did everything she could that night, and it turned out positive for me," he says.
Dawn Hodges says with the majority of the calls they respond to, they don't usually get to see the outcomes, which makes the day special.
She says while recognition is always appreciated, it's not something paramedics seek out.
"I think there a lot of heroes in this world. To be called one, it's difficult for us to hear. We do tend to say, 'it's part of the job, it's our duty, it's the profession.' But it does feel good to be recognized. It's been a good day," says Hodges.
Luck was in the intensive care unit for 10 days after his cardiac event and then continued to recover at Windsor Regional Hospital for the rest of the month before being transferred to the London Health Sciences Centre to have an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator put in his chest.
He later learned that his attack was caused by myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, but the reason why is still a mystery.
Essex-Windsor EMS paramedics provided life-saving resuscitative interventions to 373 patients in 2024.