Cody's Story

Written By Jami Fitzpatrick, Idaho

On June 1^st, 2009 my son, Cody, was found at the bottom of a swimming pool while visiting the local community pool with family members.  He was quickly pulled from the pool.  He was not breathing and his heart had stopped beating.  Unfortunately, the present adult family member was unsure of what to do but with luck a bystander knew what to do and began performing CPR and instructed the family member to call 911.  It took over 15 minutes for the first responder to arrive and in this short time the bystander was able to revive my son and save his life. 

We met this bystander two weeks later, Jennifer Turner.  She is a fun energetic mother of two, who in our house is simply known as Cody’s Angel!  Jennifer learned CPR when she was in High School, and was able to recall and rely on this knowledge some years later to save my son’s life.  I was certified in CPR as a freshman in High School.  However my husband did not learn CPR until after our first son, Clayton was born.  Clayton had a short stay in the NICU after he was born.  It was their policy that each parent had to be able to perform CPR before taking an infant home from the NICU.

After Cody’s accident, my husband and I felt that CPR skills were too easy for people not to know how to perform them.  We wanted to reach and empower as many people as possible with these simple skills. Learn Hands-Only CPR here.  We began holding community events at local schools and churches for parents, teachers, even kids.  The events were not only for certification in CPR, but imparting the knowledge and confidence for individuals to be able to help others that may be in life threatening situation.

Learning and performing CPR has become a simple skill, and research continues to make it easier for everyone to learn.  The more individuals that learn these skills, the better opportunity there will be, to have someone available when help is needed.   Our quest to encourage and advocate the knowledge of CPR will continue, because if it were not for Jennifer and her knowledge, our son would not be with us today.