A couple of years ago, the father of a close friend of mine in his early sixties was playing a game of hockey with a group of friends. Pretty healthy guy, if a little overweight.

Sometime around the middle of the game he had a massive heart attack. One second he was skating down the ice, the next he was sliding forward on his face. Other players and spectators ran to him, found that he was unresponsive and pulseless, and immediately began CPR.

Someone found an AED on the wall at the rink. His hockey jersey was quickly pulled off and the AED pads were placed. They waited for it to tell them to halt compressions. After a few seconds, the robotic voice told them "DO NOT SHOCK - RESUME COMPRESSIONS". His heart wasn't even fibrillating.

The paramedics arrived a minute later and loaded him onto the stretcher, never ceasing compressions - as, everyone should know, the three most important parts of CPR are compressions, compressions, compressions.

I was sitting in the respiratory department of the local hospital at this time. I'm a respiratory therapist. I don't remember quite what I was doing that hour of that day, but it's probably what I'm doing now - lurking reddit. The call came out overhead:

"Code blue, emergency resus room, in five minutes."

I walked downstairs and into the emergency department. Once in the resuscitation room, I made my check of all of the equipment at the head of the bed - laryngoscopes, laerdal bag, ET tubes, suction - and chatted with the doctor and nurses.

The ambulance arrived. A paramedic walked in with his Toughbook laptop open, reciting to us the story of the incoming patient.

"Sixty-something year old gentleman, PEA arrest while playing hockey. Immediate bystander CPR. Intubated, never shocked. Downtime has been around twenty minutes."

He sidestepped as the other two paramedics wheeled in the patient, a firefighter still compressing the chest. As the head paramedic recited which drugs had been given, we transferred the patient off of the stretcher to the resus bed and I took over manual ventilation. A health care aide got onto a stool and took over compressions.

We worked on him for another forty minutes - IV's free-flowing saline, epinephrine and atropine being pushed - everything. Not once did we get even a hint of heart activity. A portable ultrasound machine confirmed this. We watched it sit motionless inside his chest on the screen. The EKG showed no activity. This is very rare, usually there is at least some electrical current. Not this guy. Flatlined, like on TV.

The doctor called it then. I peeled my gloves off and we talked about it. There was nothing we could do. A couple of laughs - can't get much more Canadian than dying with your skates on. Seriously, this guy was laying blue and cold on a bed in the ER with his hockey skates still laced up. Unbelievable.

I didn't know it was my friend's dad until someone called me the next day. Told me that he died in the middle of a hockey game. I lied, told them I wasn't working yesterday, that it was terrible news and that my thoughts were with his family.

My friend called me about a week later. She wanted to know if I was there. I didn't lie to her. I told her yes, that I was at the head of his bed when he came in. She asked me how it was, if anything could have been done differently, if he was in any pain.

I've lied to people before, who have asked if their family members went peacefully. I'll lie to a lot more before I'm done with this job. But with her I didn't have to. I explained how his heart went completely asystolic, how it takes just a moment for lack of bloodflow to the brain to cause unconsciousness. One second you're racing down the ice chasing the puck, and the next, you're dead. Like a marionette with the strings cut. Boom, down.

To die with my skates still on, I told her, is the way I want to go.