AUSTELL, Ga. – Ed Winniki’s is an amazing story and the two friends who helped write it, John Keck and Jack Dalton, were honored in Austell Thursday by Cobb County Fire and Emergency Services for their roles in the happy ending.

“John, Jack and I are avid cyclists,"  Winniki said. "Back on Nov. 7, we decided to go up to Austell, Georgia to the Silver Comet Trail. It’s an old railroad bed that’s been converted into a bike trail so it’s relatively flat and we decided to do about 50 miles. And on the way back, at about mile marker 41, Jack and John noticed that I wasn’t with them.

“They had stopped at a stop sign and they turned around and looked and I had fallen and I wasn’t moving. Subsequently, I had a sudden cardiac arrest. One minute, I was riding my bike with my two buds having a nice day and we were having a nice day, and the next time I remembered anything was six days later when I woke up in Wellstone Hospital in Cobb County.”

Dalton, a nurse anesthetist for 30 years and familiar with cardiac arrest and CPR, knew immediately that his friend was in trouble after he and Keck saw Winniki on the ground and rode back to him.

“We just happened to turn around and notice that he was having a problem,” he said. "And when we went back and looked at him, I knew immediately that this is catastrophic. This is not he fell off his bike.”

Dalton said he started CPR while Keck called 911.

“He (Keck) took over the communication thing, talking to the 911 operator and I was working on him,” he said.

At Thursday’s ceremony, Keck and Dalton received Citizen Lifesaving Awards for starting CPR on their friend and notifying 911 that day. Also on hand were the firefighters and EMS crew who responded and Cobb County 911 operator who took the call. It was Winniki’s first time meeting the others involved in his story of survival.

“When Captain Adams from the Cobb County Fire Department called and asked me if I was interested in giving out a citizen’s lifesaving award and also meeting the emergency team that responded to my cardiac arrest, I was more than happy to,” he said. "And so I finally, after two months, got to meet the people who came and jump started my heart and transported me to the emergency room. And here I am, about 80 days later, and I’m on the road to recovery. It’s quite a story.

“One of the things I was cognizant of when I was there is that the firemen and policemen, all these people who work so hard to keep us safe, we never think about them until we need them. There were 25 people at this thing and they were all there because they had a role. It was an amazing day and kind of heartwarming and but also just another detail of how extremely fortunate I am to be alive.”