Marc Alfonso was driving along Southwest Marine Drive at 2:30 p.m. last July when he came upon a red pickup truck that had smashed into a power pole and retaining wall near Victoria Drive. Electrical wires were down, and two civilians attended to a limp man.

Alfonso pulled over, took his oxygen tank, defibrillator and first aid kit from his trunk, jammed a tube in the man’s mouth to make sure his airway was clear, gave him oxygen, stuck two palm-sized stickers attached to the wires of his defibrillator on to the man’s ribs and upper chest and gave him a shock that restarted his heart.

Lorne Dufour spent five weeks in hospital, Alfonso says, and survived.

Alfonso and Quisha Girard-Lau, the woman who was doing chest compressions on Dufour when Alfonso arrived, received a Vital Link Award from the B.C. Ambulance Service on Dec. 9.

Alfonso, 29, took his initial first aid course two years ago after his best friend Andrew Dolesji died in a car accident. He wanted to know that if he came across an emergency, he could save a life.

In addition to running his own robotics company, the Fairview resident works part-time as a ski patroller, has volunteered at special events and recently started teaching emergency medical responder courses.

But he admits responding to the incident was nerve-wracking.

“When you’re a ski patroller and you’re in uniform and you’re going around the hill, you know that something’s going to happen and you’re ready for it all day,” he said. “But to come across that across the street and having to jump into that role in seconds is tough… you spend the next several weeks thinking back to that incident and what happened.”

He says B.C. Ambulance Services paramedics gave him the follow-up support he needed by listening to his experience and answering his questions.

Alfonso knows the average person isn’t going to spend $2,300 to buy an oxygen tank, inflatable oxygen bag, a trauma kit and a defibrillator and get certified to use a defibrillator, but his message is that a little CPR can go a long way.

“For every minute that CPR doesn’t happen, there’s a 10 per cent less chance that the person will come back,” he said. “It might take the paramedics a few minutes to get there but those minutes are critical. If the person collapses in a restaurant and has a cardiac arrest, if it takes the paramedics four to eight minutes to get there, that’s 40 to 80 per cent of your chance of survival going down if no one does CPR.”

Alfonso understands some may hesitate to breath into a stranger’s mouth but says even chest compressions can help save a life.

“Something is always better than nothing,” he said. “People don’t realize how easy a skill CPR is to learn and how vital it is to the outcome of a situation. They will do more for that person than anyone else down the chain of survival.”

crossi@vancourier.com