Son Saves Father

Wantirna teenager uses CPR to save father

07 Aug 09 @ 07:00am by Marnie Reid
A WANTIRNA teenager saved his dad’s life by performing CPR just hours after he’d first seen it done at a footy match.
Tony Frachione is alive and well, thanks to the efforts of his son, Adam, who performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on him when he had a heart attack recently.
Ironically, Adam, 18, learned about CPR at a St Kilda-Geelong match just hours before when he saw paramedics performing it on a man who collapsed at the game.
Then just hours later his dad had a heart attack at their Wantirna home.
Adam said adrenalin just took over and he started doing CPR, and his mum, Paula, helped. The Whitefriars College student performed CPR for nine minutes until the ambulance officers arrived. They told him he had saved his dad’s life.
Adam said officers had used a defibrillator to zap his dad back to life after he stopped breathing.
Mr Frachione, 46, was rushed to hospital and woke up at the Epworth Freemasons three days later.
Adam said doctors feared his dad would be brain-damaged, but he was fine.
The proud father said Adam was a brave, smart kid. “When they told me he had done the CPR it blew me away,” he said.
Adam said he didn’t want to take up medicine because it was too stressful. He’d prefer to tackle engineering. He said his dad didn’t drink or smoke and rode his bike 30km a day.