Things to remember:

1. Never, never, never turn a chance to save a life into two obituaries. If you can't do something safely, don't even try.
    
2. When someome near you suffers a sudden cardiac arrest, you are the emergency response system. The ambulance cannot get there in time. A person who is not breathing will almost certainly not get better without your immediate help.
    
3. When you have a sudden cardiac arrest, you're not going to be the one who pumps your chest. It's not enough to learn CPR - you need to train others or convince them to be trained.
    
4. Hollywood is not your friend. Things don't happen as dramatically as portrayed on the screen. A stroke can present in subtle ways. A heart attack doesn't always bring sharp chest pain. Females frequently don't exhibit the "classic, male symptoms." you need to be alert and suppress the natural human tendency to hope you're not really seeing what you are seeing.
    
5. Slightly more than 40% of the people who are having a stroke realize that they are having the stroke. Be alert for the signs of a stroke, and be prepared to deal with a patient who will disagree with you.