Dead Man Came Back to Life?

S A N   F R A N C I S C O, June 5 -- — When Rob Elliott told his wife he was unable to move a muscle and then blacked out, she called 911, performed CPR and searched for his pulse. She didn't find one until a half-hour later.

Elliott, a 45-year-old attorney, had suffered a sudden cardiac arrest, an abrupt loss of heart function that kills more than a quarter-million Americans each year.

When the paramedics arrived at Elliott's home, they continued the work his wife had started, even though they said they couldn't find his pulse either.

Daren Jenner, the lead paramedic on the scene, said Elliott was even hooked up to a cardiac monitor, which showed no pulse.

"We had him connected to the cardiac monitor, and we were continuously checking his pulse," Jenner said on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "No pulse for nearly 30 minutes. And really I've never seen anything like this in my 15 years as a paramedic. It's just a miracle. It's unbelievable."

‘A Complete Turnaround’

When Elliott's pulse was finally detected, Jenner thought he would never have a chance to talk to the man he had helped save.

"My biggest fear [was that] later on when I wanted to follow up on him is that I would find out that he unfortunately was never going to wake up," Jenner said. "But when I did call to follow up on him, he was awake and he talked to me on the phone."

When Elliott's wife, Dana, arrived at the hospital with their two young children the day after his cardiac arrest, she expected to find her husband clinging to life. Instead she found him conscious and smiling.

"He's sitting up and says, 'Hi, babe.' So, it was a complete turnaround," Dana Elliott said. "And you could've knocked me over with a feather."

Cardiac arrest is reversible if it's treated within a few minutes with an electric shock to the heart to restore a normal heartbeat. A victim's chances of survival are reduced by 7 percent to 10 percent with every minute that passes without defibrillation.

Dr. Paul Pepe, chairman of emergency medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, says Dana Elliott's ability to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation on her husband was invaluable.