The Chicago Bears' Gaines Adams, all six-foot-five and 258 pounds of him, is one of the very last people on earth that you would suspect would die of a heart attack.

Yet, that's exactly what happened, and Gaines' longtime girlfriend recounted the agony of not being able to help the young star.

"I tried,'' Charo Slappy said, voice quivering. "You know what hurts so bad? Any time and every time I needed him, he was there. And when he needed me, I couldn't help him. I tried, but I couldn't help him.''

"This isn't the first time that lack of training has lead to a preventable death," trainer Mark Dewdney says. "In fact, paramedics and firefighters can take seven, ten, fifteen minutes, sometimes half an hour, to get to a person who's having a heart attack. A simple two-hour CPR course would have taught her techniques that would, in all likelihood, have saved his life."

Other recent notable examples of death from cardiac arrest have shocked the worlds of fame and fortune; 36-year-old actress Britney Murphy is just one example of people whom Dewdney asserts could have been saved - if only civilians had taken the time to get educated.

"Man, it's a waste of life," Dewdney says. "If they'd taken a CPR course, I'll bet you money, real money, that these talented kids would have still been with us today - and everyone out there knows someone who's at risk of a fatal heart attack. GET TRAINED - or they die. It's as simple as that."

Asked why citizens need to learn CPR instead of relying on emergency services such as Fire-Rescue or EMS, Dewdney replied, "Up to 80% of sudden heart-attack deaths occur at home. When you couple that fact with the fact that paramedics and firefighters can take as long as half an hour to reach you, it comes down to this; if YOU don't start CPR immediately on your loved one, that person can be brain dead in as little as ten minutes - and, at that point, it's OVER for them."

Rescue One's courses range from the ultra-simple (4-hour New Parent & Babysitter) to the comprehensive (2-day Standard First Aid, $100), are fully approved by WSIB, and are the PERFECT means for YOU to learn the ultra-simple lesson plans laid out by Rescue One and Toronto EMS' Cardiac Safe City Program.