The police officer, the nurse and the automotive parts salesman were regulars at Fitness 19 gym in Lilburn, but their paths rarely crossed.

Gwinnett County police Officer Eric Charron had seen David Birge on occasion, but because of his work schedule, Charron seldom worked out in the evenings. The same was true for Delicia Lee, a pediatric nurse at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston and mother of three.

File photo (ENLARGE)

Pediatric nurse Delicia Lee and officer Eric Charron visit David Birge at the hospital after he underwent multiple-bypass heart surgery.

But early in May, fate or serendipity brought the three of them together, and Birge is grateful.

Otherwise, he would have been a dead man.

"No doubt," said Dr. Alex Justicz, a cardiac surgeon at St. Joseph's Hospital in Atlanta. "Without the AED [automatic external defibrillator] and conscientious CPR, we wouldn't have this story to discuss. He wouldn't have made it."

The three were together again on May 16 - meeting properly for the first time, really - in Birge's hospital room as he recovered from multiple bypass heart surgery. He listened as Charron and Lee described the events of May 2.

Birge, 47, collapsed within minutes of starting his workout on an elliptical machine.

"There was this big bang, and I turned, and he was one the floor," Charron said.

The officer and Lee, who were exercising a few feet away, went to Birge.

His body was shaking. His eyes were wide open. He was breathing heavily. Lee thought Birge might be having a seizure.

"If you can hear me, say something," she said to Birge. Then he stopped breathing.

Birge's body went from pink to blue to dark gray. He didn't have a pulse. Charron and Lee started CPR.

"I'll do chest compressions," Charron told Lee. "You breathe for him."

Charron, who had just gone through defibrillator training, asked for the club's device, which delivers an electric charge to restart the heart.

Lee said she felt like "a fish out of water." She's used to sick kids, but this was a 5-foot-7, 175-pound adult.

Birge's older brother had some heart problems, but Birge said his ticker was in tip-top shape, as far as he knew. He went from work to the gym five days a week to keep it that way.

He'd been at the same routine for more than a year: 30 minutes on the elliptical machine, then crunches and weights, and back on the elliptical if he felt like it.

But his heart betrayed him that night.

"He was dead. He didn't have a heartbeat. He wasn't breathing," Lee said. "I didn't think he was going to come back."

Charron attached the defibrillator to Birge and gave him a shock. Nothing. He did it again. Still nothing, so the pair kept up the CPR.

Ten minutes after he collapsed, Charron said, the paramedics arrived.

In his nearly 10 years as an officer, first in Decatur, then Gwinnett County, Charron said he'd never witnessed anything like this.

"Normally, I get there after the fact," he said, "when it's too late do anything."

Minutes after the paramedics used their more powerful defibrillator, Birge's color returned. He was breathing again.

Lee and Charron breathed a sigh of relief.

As the paramedics took Birge away, they realized they didn't even know his name — or each other's.

By the time he arrived at St. Joseph's, Birge's heart could barely pump blood. It was the worst case Justicz had ever seen.

Each of the heart's three main arteries had a critical blockage, the doctor said. In addition, three branches from those arteries were blocked.

He needed surgery, but his heart wasn't strong enough. Ten days after he collapsed, Birge came through surgery to bypass those six blockages.

By May 16, he was sitting up, talking to his favorite visitors, Charron and Lee.

He called them his heroes. They said they did what anybody would've done.

"I feel lucky it all worked out," Charron said.

— This article is a reprint from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.