When the Drill Became Real: EMS Students Save the Instructor Who Taught Them CPR

A sudden cardiac arrest during a routine CPR class in Wisconsin became a powerful reminder that emergency training is never “just practice.”

It was meant to be an ordinary day of hands-on instruction. Inside a training ambulance at Fox Valley Technical College in Appleton, Wisconsin, veteran EMS and paramedic instructor Karl Arps was doing what he has done for years, teaching future first responders how to recognize a cardiac emergency. To make the lesson realistic, he began acting out the symptoms of chest pain.

Then the simulation stopped being a simulation.

Mid-lesson, Arps went into sudden cardiac arrest. In an instant, the students who had been practicing on him became his care team. Drawing on the very skills their instructor had drilled into them, they recognized that this was no longer a scenario, began chest compressions, and used an automated external defibrillator (AED). First responders rushed him to the hospital, where he underwent open-heart surgery and survived.

Weeks later, Arps walked back into the classroom to thank the students who saved his life: Sofie DeValk, Anella Real, Logan Lehrer, and Ben Marsh. Several said the experience left them steadier and more confident about stepping into the field, having already faced the highest-stakes moment of their training before ever graduating.

“I am living proof that CPR works,” Arps told the students who revived him.

Why It Matters for Nurses and Healthcare Educators

For the nursing and healthcare community, this is more than a feel-good headline. It is a real-world demonstration of what competency-based, hands-on training is built to produce: clinicians who can act decisively when seconds count. Survival from cardiac arrest depends heavily on immediate, high-quality CPR and early defibrillation, and outcomes improve dramatically when trained, prepared people are in the room.

It is also a tribute to educators. Every nurse educator, preceptor, and CPR instructor invests in a future they may never witness, until (as in the case of Arps) that investment comes full circle in the most personal way imaginable.

The takeaway is simple and urgent: keep your Basic Life Support (BLS) skills current, know where your nearest AED is, and never treat training as “just practice.” One prepared responder can be the difference between a tragedy and a homecoming.