When Sarah Saunders suffered cardiac arrest at home last year, her father’s CPR training and the quick response of emergency crews helped save her life. On Friday, she reunited with the paramedics who helped bring her back from the brink at the 13th annual Essex-Windsor EMS Survivor Day, which celebrated 20 people who survived trauma or out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in 2025. The event at the St. Clair Centre for the Arts brought survivors together with the paramedics, firefighters, police officers, ambulance communications officers and members of the public who played a role in their rescues. For Sarah’s family, April 7, 2025, began as an ordinary day. Her father, Stephen Saunders, said Sarah was taking a nap on the living room couch when his wife alerted him that their daughter was making strange sounds and having trouble breathing. He said he found Sarah unresponsive, with her eyes rolled back, and could not detect a pulse. “I started CPR right away,” Saunders said, recalling how he worked to revive his daughter while his wife called 911. Firefighters arrived within minutes and took over. Sarah was revived and taken to hospital, where she underwent emergency surgery and received two stents. A week later, she travelled to London, Ont., to have an implantable defibrillator placed in her chest. Sarah remembers little of the incident. “All I remember is mama pulling me off the ground and calling 911,” she said. Her father credits the CPR training he received through his security work, about six months before the emergency, with helping him respond. “Doing CPR on a dummy is so much different than doing it on your own daughter,” he told CTV News. “The training kicked in.” Bringing back emotions For Stefanie Amort, the paramedic who helped Sarah, seeing the family again at Survivor Day brought back the emotions of the call. “It was overwhelming all over again, because you really feel the love that they have,” Amort explained. “It just brings it home, I guess you could say. It really is kind of why we do what we do.” Amort said the event offers a rare opportunity for emergency responders to reconnect with the people they have helped, outside the pressure of an emergency. “Sometimes our job can be a little bit thankless,” she said, adding that it was meaningful to see the impact of their work and recognize the contributions of everyone involved, from police and firefighters to paramedics and ambulance communications staff. Essex-Windsor EMS paramedics provided life-saving resuscitative interventions to 20 patients in 2025, whose stories were recognized at Friday’s event. The ceremony also recognized 70 paramedics, 53 firefighters, seven ambulance communications officers, six members of the public, two paramedic students, and seven police officers. Tanya Fick, Essex-Windsor EMS manager of employee wellness and Survivor Day organizer, said the event highlights the teamwork behind each rescue. “We’re a community and we all come together and we all work together as a team,” Fick said. “Bystanders, paramedics, dispatch, fire, police — we’re all in one call together.” Growing defibrillator access Public access defibrillators were another focus of the event on Friday. Dave Thibodeau, Essex-Windsor EMS public access defibrillator program co-ordinator, said 12 public Automated External Defibrillators (AED) were used in cardiac arrest cases across the region in 2025. Three of those cases resulted in patients being discharged from hospital. An AED can analyze a person’s heart rhythm and deliver a shock when appropriate. Early CPR and defibrillation can improve the chances of survival following cardiac arrest. Thibodeau said more than 2,000 public access defibrillators are located across Windsor-Essex and Pelee Island. The service is working to register the devices so 911 dispatchers can direct callers to one when needed. He encouraged people not to hesitate to use an AED in an emergency, noting that dispatchers can provide instructions over the phone. Essex-Windsor EMS also offers free training sessions throughout the year. Three of the rescues recognized at Survivor Day involved bystanders using publicly available AEDs. During the ceremony, attending survivors received printouts of their heart rhythms recorded by paramedics during their emergencies. Those involved in the rescues were presented with Essex-Windsor EMS “save” pins. Paramedic Richard St. Pierre was also recognized for more than 20 saves over his 30-year career involving patients who survived and were discharged from hospital. St. Pierre said the event is a reminder to appreciate the people around us and not take life for granted. “Some people get a second chance on life, but they didn’t expect to have,” he said. “Life is short.” According Sarah and her family, the reunion was an opportunity to thank the people who helped give her that second chance. “We are very, very thankful that they were there and very thankful that Sarah is here,” Stephen Saunders said.
