Viviana Mimran, 3, learns the basics of hands-only CPR with her mom Elissa Mimran at the Cranberry Township Municipal Center on Saturday. Cranberry EMS hosted its annual Save-A-Life Saturday giving anyone in attendance a free basic CPR lesson and celebrating the lives of a few area residents who were saved by good Samaritans that started CPR before EMS arrived. Elissa Mimran's father, Gary Lucente, was among those in attendance who were revived by CPR after going into cardiac arrest. Seb Foltz/Butler Eagle

CRANBERRY TWP — Everybody has the ability to save a life.

That's the lesson Cranberry Township EMS taught Saturday, bolstering their point with three survivors of sudden cardiac arrest, who lived because a bystander performed CPR.

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, CTEMS taught anyone who came how to perform compression-only CPR during Save a Life Saturday.

At noon, the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association joined them, honoring both survivors and bystanders — heroes, as the association called them — and sharing their stories.

Those included the story of Gary Lucente, a 69-year-old delivery driver who experienced cardiac arrest in a parking lot. As co-workers called 911, a nearby nurse came over and performed CPR until police arrived.

Lucente survived and, according to his daughter, Elissa Mimran, has returned to shooting pool and playing golf. This would not have been possible, Lucente said, without the intervention of bystanders and EMS personnel.

“I just want to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for saving me, for giving me the rest of my life,” he said.

The chances of surviving an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, according to the American Heart Association, are around 11 percent. But, by performing CPR and using an automated external defibrillator, odds are about 50 percent.

“(The odds) are improving because of days like this, where we're teaching hands-only CPR,” Cheryl Rickens, of the SCAA, said.

Rickens said the key to patients surviving these experiences was teamwork — the teamwork of a bystander performing CPR and EMS personnel. To highlight this teamwork, she recalled an event in March, where a player in a dek hockey game skated to his bench, grabbed his chest and collapsed. Immediately, other players called 911, and Brian Conforto, who was on the opposing team, performed CPR.

Conforto saw that patient, Richard Ross, at the reunion, a possibility the association said came about from his Samaritan deed.

Teaching hands-only CPR improves the chances of this teamwork being successful, Rickens said, and she hopes to see more bystanders and survivors at future Save a Life Saturdays.

“It's just a really heartwarming event, and we get to do this every year,” she said.