10th Grader Saves Stepfather’s Life with His Newly-Learned CPR Skills Taught in Schools

Less than a year after Anthony Killinger attended a CPR course in his school gymnasium, his mother was at the door of his bedroom saying she thought her husband was dead.

Running downstairs, Killinger found his stepfather, Mike Reese, unconscious on the ground making a snoring sound.

With a prayer to God to “take the wheel,” the Lancaster teen executed what he had been taught.

“I call 911 and the dude on the phone is telling me start doing CPR. I did it for like 8 minutes and then he started breathing again,” Killinger told WIVB 4 in Buffalo. “I had to check his pulse, but it kept fading.”

Those 8 minutes prolonged not only Reese’s life, but his brain, as cardiac arrest deprives the brain of oxygen rich blood, often leading to neurological tissue damage. The EMS arrived to relieve Killinger, and later told him that the quick-thinking saved his stepfather’s life.

“The doctor said it’s like a 9% chance to just survive cardiac arrest,” Killinger said. “Then it’s another thing to survive and have no brain damage. It was crazy that he survived and didn’t have anything.”

Reese underwent open-heart surgery back in 2018. This time, his stay in the hospital was a little shorter: just a week, before he was released with a defibrillator implant. Killinger’s house baseball team coach, stepdad and stepson are best friends, and the moment they reunited in the hospital was pretty emotional, the teen said.

WIVB spoke also to Reese, who said that he was dealing happily with fatigue—a common after effect of cardiac arrest—all while thanking God that Killinger went to bat for him at his most desperate hour.

CPR courses are often given out at events, at schools, or routinely in fire stations for free. Learning it can save a life in any place at any moment, as GNN has reported over and over and over again.