Brea man's life saved at gym as off-duty nurse, fire captains and a doctor step in

It was a heart-stopping 10 minutes at the gym for a Brea man, literally, but the right people, at the right time and place, saved his life.

Rolan Pastores says he doesn't remember any of it. The 55-year-old suffered cardiac arrest while he was working out at Lifetime Fitness in Brea.

He said on Sept. 22, he slept in, so he went to the gym an hour later than usual. About halfway into his workout, he suffered cardiac arrest.

"Next thing you know, I'm trying to put away a kettlebell, and I wake up in an ambulance," Pastores said.

He collapsed, hitting his head on a dumbbell rack, as his heart suddenly stopped. The survival rate of someone experiencing cardiac arrest outside a hospital is only about 10%. But in this case, all the stars aligned.

Florence Kim was working out near him. She's a family nurse practitioner.

"I see him turning blue. So, I thought, ok we need to do CPR right away," she said. While she did chest compressions, off-duty Orange County Fire Authority Captain Kevin Gorham jumped in.

"I took over his airway and started breathing for him, while Captain Stone here got the AED," he said.

Another off-duty captain, Bryant Stone of Santa Monica Fire, administered the shock, and his pulse was recovered after 10 minutes.

That's when another gym-goer, Shamail Tariq, ran toward the commotion. Tariq just happens to be a cardiologist.

"I see the EKG in the rhythm strip, and I see that it's abnormal. And seconds later, I see the alert from the hospital," he said.

Dr. Tariq usually goes to a different gym, but that day, he was at the Brea location because he was the on-call cardiologist for nearby Providence St. Jude Hospital in Fullerton.

It only took him a few seconds to realize that the hospital alert he received was about the patient right in front of him. He rushed to the hospital, arriving right before the ambulance.

There was a 99% blockage. Dr. Tariq immediately performed surgery, placing two stents in Pastores' heart, restoring blood flow. 

As Pastores was at a follow-up appointment, in the recovery gym, he had a few visitors. "Are you the one that gave me CPR?" he asked Kim as the two embraced. "You are strong, because my ribs hurt and I thank you for that," he said.

It was nurse Kim, both captains Gorham and Stone, and the ambulance team, elated to see Pastores alive and well.

"I could have left earlier, I could have been there later, but the timing was just right," Pastores said. "Everything aligned; God was definitely watching out for me, with the right people in the right spots."

They say they are now gym buddies for life.