WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — Whether it's playing with their dog Jax in the front yard or taking their stand-up jet-skis out on the water, the Feldman family loves to be outside.
It was no different this summer.
Back in June, Brad Feldman and his family enjoyed a warm summer day, spending the morning on the water and the afternoon at an arts festival.
But shortly after he and his wife Alicia headed off to bed that night, they were woken up unexpectedly by Jax.
"I don't think anybody realizes the intuition that dogs have, because he was the one that actually woke up my wife," Brad said.
Jax's intuition was right. Alicia turned over to find Brad pale and unresponsive, gasping for air.
She quickly called 911, but while waiting for paramedics to arrive, Alicia knew her daughter Avery could help.
“All of a sudden, my mom comes in my room and says 'You got to help dad,'" said Avery, a senior at Valley High School. "I went in the room, and it all started from there."
In his sleep, Brad's heart had gone into ventricular fibrillation, an arrhythmia that stops the heart from pumping blood to other areas of the body. Thankfully, Avery was newly CPR-certified from her summer job as a lifeguard.
Unsure of what was going on with her father, Avery didn't know if she was supposed to start chest compressions. But the dispatcher on the other line of that 911 call helped her make that decision.
"If anyone ever says, they're not conscious, they're not breathing, that's immediate, we need to do CPR right now, because obviously something is wrong," Westcom 911 operator Dena Larson told Local 5,
Calm and collected, Larson walked Avery through the process, step by step. She continued performing CPR on her father for seven minutes before paramedics arrived.
"She kind of just jumped right in while I was counting out loud, which helped a lot," Avery said. "She told me I was one of the calmest people to be on the phone with while doing it."
In the end, that CPR certification saved her father's life. Brad considers himself one of the lucky ones.
"It's only an 18% survival rate for people that have sudden cardiac arrest at home," he said.
It's rare for 911 dispatchers like Larson to find out the outcome of their calls, but the Feldman family wanted to express their gratitude face-to-face.
"They came down and visited, got to tour the center and they brought us some snacks and everything. It was really nice," Larson said.
Of all the heroes in this story, the Feldmans say their dog Jax deserves to be recognized as one, too.
"Thank god for this dog," Brad said. "He's a hero."