45 minutes of CPR by paramedics got his heart working again. Unfortunately EVERYTHING else was toast. Including his kidneys. So he blew up like a balloon and was brain dead and seizuring.

Thank heaven my grandmother and sister didn't believe in keeping his corpse breathing so they turned the ventilator off PDQ. The doctors would have loved it if we had tried valiantly to keep his heart beating as long as possible, but we had better sense than that.

when my father (at 79) suffered sudden cardiac arrest while walking on a path near his home and was resuscitated by a state trooper who was carrying the only portable defibrillator in the county - and who continued with CPR after his heart stopped twice more before the paramedics arrived some 20 minutes later - he lived for another 10 years, fully functioning until the two months of his life.

They estimated that he had been without coronary function for at least two to three minutes before the trooper reached him - and another couple of minutes before he applied the first 'shock'. All told; probably close to half an hour of needing someone to do the job of his heart for him.

It just depends, I guess - and that is a tremendously tough call to make. I'm glad I had my dad for that extra decade and I feel for the position that your grandmother and sister were placed in because your grandfather did not beat those odds. You have my sympathies.

and then another 5 or more before paramedics arrived. My grandmother and her neighbor didn't know CPR, but it was January and he was out in the car getting it warmed up.

He was 88, BTW. I don't think he even knew what hit him, and he was doing for my grandmother and looking forward to the Super Bowl later that day. There are worse ways to go.

Start CPR if you see or hear someone go down and can get there within that 4 minute window. Every single second over that 4 minutes is causing tremendous damage.

Not knowing what hit you is not a bad way to go. Oh, it's never convenient and there are always loose ends unless you've been languishing in a nursing home for years, but I'd hazard a guess it's what we all want.

Their home became my grandmother's home. She was the one with money in the bank: a modest inheritance in trust from her sister, and when my grandfather died the trust was liquidated and the money was hers to do with as she wished. She stayed in the mobile home even though it would have bought her a little condo.