AFTON – Immediate CPR can mean the difference between life and death. It did for Bruce Dailey, whose life was saved by four people, including a ninth grader, honored by the American Heart Association on Wednesday.

“You have no idea how good it feels to be here today,” Dailey said during the Heartsaver Hero Award presentation at Afton Central School. Heartsaver Hero Awards honor bystanders who take action to save sudden cardiac arrest victims. “I was very fortunate that the people I was with were prepared,” Dailey continued. “This is why we take CPR training. We take it for our community, so we can help each other.”

Dailey, 70, collapsed in November during a lifeguard review class at the school. Fellow lifeguard review students Jennifer Jones, Lila Harris and Sue Shove started CPR. Along with first responders, they performed more than nine minutes of CPR to keep Dailey alive. As soon as Dailey collapsed, Oliviah Harris-Morris, a ninth-grade student at Afton, ran to get the automated external defibrillator (AED) without being asked. Dailey had to be shocked three times before he made it to the hospital.

Harris-Morris knew exactly where the AED was because of CPR trainings given every year to all students in Afton’s physical education class. She is one of the thousands of New York State students who will learn Hands-Only CPR before graduation. In 2015, New York became the 26th state in the nation to make Hands-Only CPR training a graduation requirement.