Last Wednesday's Guest Speaker: Julius Czerny

It wouldn't be easy to outline a near death experience, a sort of coming back from the other side, without being overly intensive, perhaps even a bit morose.  To do it with a lot of humour and banter, yet to make you seriously think about it, is the métier of a professional speaker. "You only live once" so the saying goes, but "it might not be necessarily so" would sum up Julius' experience with death. Last year, in 2017, he "celebrated 7 years of life": 7 years ago, he suffered a cardiac arrest. Unconscious, not breathing, no pulse.  He later on researched it: on that day, there were 31 cardiac arrests. The average survival rate is 1.4%. Not hot, hey. So what saved him? Primarily the First Aid skills of his fellow Surf Life Savers who organized the chest compressions, alternating with mouth-to-mouth and ultimately getting the Defillibrator into action. Plus somebody calling the Ambulance...  Now, you might think that Julius probably was unfit, a bit overweight, had been a smoker...  Wrong on all counts! At the time, he was a champion Life Saver. Besides the fast action of his mates and the Defillibrator which eventually was found, what saved him was the very fact that he was quite fit.  This begs the question: "How would you survive a cardiac arrest??"  Do you have a 'team' around you who know what to do?

 

Julius decided he needed to do more. He wrote a book about it ('Dead One Day - Laughing The Next').  But the message needs to go to the kids, so it gets impregnated into their minds from an early age. He designed an award winning board game to achieve just that and he named it Super Lifesaver. Click on the link for more info.  If you would like a copy for your kids or grand kids, contact the Webmaster - Surfers Sunrise will place a bulk order shortly.