Kayla Burt died in 2002

Kayla Burt, a former University of Washington basketball star, died in 2002 of a sudden cardiac arrest and recently was hired as an outreach coordinator for The Hope Heart Institute, a nonprofit research and education organization in Bellevue.

Her recovery from death-by-SCA has been attributed to her teammates having performed CPR on her until the medics arrived.

In 2002, this was a rare happening. Today it is more common. Yet several hundred thousand people die every year in the U.S.A., just because it isn't common enough. If you haven't been trained in Bystander CPR in the past year, just go do it. You have a one-in-seven chance of seeing at least one sudden cardiac arrest in your lifetime, and when you do, it will most likely be a family member or friend.

Of all the lines you don't want to hear at a funeral, the worst is "I meant to take a CPR course, but hadn't gotten around to it."

Probability-wise, not being trained is about the same as playing Russian Roulette, but with the pistol pointed at a family member or friend.