It happened faster than Black Diamond resident Teri Moore could believe.

One moment, she and her husband, Joe, were settling down to watch a movie after a great day.

The next, she had 911 on the phone and was literally working to save Joe’s life.

“We had just started a movie… I thought he was snoring,” she recalled. “We kind of have a joke between each other, ‘Are you asleep already?’”

But Joe wasn’t asleep — that noise Teri heard was him gasping for air that wouldn’t come. His arms were extended in front of him as if he could catch his last breath and bring it back to his lungs. He was drooling.

They didn’t know it at the time, but Joe’s heart had stopped.

Doctors later confirmed there was no blockage, no coronary artery spasm. This wasn’t a heart attack, or a stroke.

His heart. Just. Stopped.

That night is most likely forever etched in Teri’s mind, though Joe said he doesn’t remember a thing.

However, they’ll both remember the Sept. 20 Black Diamond City Council meeting, when Officer Ryan Keller was officially presented with the Life Saving Award for saving Joe’s life.

“On July 14, Officer Keller was heading home after work from his normal patrol shift when he heard another officer being dispatched to a male patient who stopped breathing and was unresponsive,” Black Diamond Police Chief Jamey Kiblinger told the council before presenting Keller with a plaque. “Officer Keller took it upon himself to turn around and respond to the patient,” because he was far closer to the Moore’s home on South East Green Valley Road than the other officer.

Meanwhile, Teri told dispatch she has an automatic gate that needs to be opened before Officer Keller could get to her home; dispatch advised her to open the gate and return performing CPR as quickly as possible.

Teri was too quick, in fact, and the automatic gate began to close just as Keller arrived.

“He just had to bust through the gate,” she recalled. “I just said, ‘Come on through!’ He broke my gate, really bad. Totally worth it.”

Later, Teri realized she could have used her automatic gate controller, which she was holding when Keller drove through her gate.

When Keller started performing CPR, Teri had already been doing compressions for approximately 10 minutes.

“When I got there, he didn’t have a pulse, he wasn’t breathing,” Keller said in a later interview, but after a few more minutes of CPR, Joe’s heart started breathing again, adding that once medics arrived, they worked on Joe for the better part of an hour before it was safe to transport him to a hospital.

But Joe wasn’t out of the woods yet — as soon as they left the Moores’ driveway, his heart stopped again.

He was taken to an Auburn hospital and was put under sedation and underwent thermal therapy, “which is having very good results on people who’s heart had stopped,” Teri said.

After 48 hours, Joe’s sedation was lessened and he was taken off his ventilator, and not only was he responsive, but “by all accounts he had zero brain trauma,” Teri said. “It’s just a miracle, really.”

A miracle it may be, but Mountain View Fire and Rescue Chief Greg Smith said during the council meeting the only reason Joe was even alive was because Teri was able to start CPR straight away — a must for patients who suffer from sudden cardiac arrest like Joe.

Sudden cardiac arrest is caused by either structural or electrical abnormalities in the heart, which are practically impossible to detect without an electrocardiogram and ultrasounds.

Unlike heart attack victims, those who experience sudden cardiac arrest rarely show any signs like shortness of breath, chest pains or dizziness, according to Parent Heart Watch, a national nonprofit that educates the public about heart issues.

Both Teri and Joe both know CPR because they were required to take a class to become foster parents.

Teri said she’s thanked all the officers and medics involved in saving her husband’s life, but “There’s no way you can possibly express how much it means to know they’re literally a phone call away,” she added. “I could never be that brave, what they do every single day.”

Keller, not used to the spotlight, said he was just doing his job.

“Honestly, it was just good timing. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time,” he said. “Just one of those things, I guess.

“I wasn’t expecting this,” he added, gesturing to the number of people that showed up to the council meeting just to attend the award ceremony and his wife, who was holding flowers given to him. “It was nice to see them again. I didn’t even recognize him — he was blue when I saw him.”

Mountain View Fire and Rescue hosts CPR, first aid, and Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) classes throughout the year. To learn more about when, where, and how much classes cost, go to www.kcfd44.org/176/Classes or email the department at tperciful@kcfd44.org.

East Pierce Fire and Rescue holds CPR and first aid classes at their station on Veterans Memorial Drive in Bonney Lake.

Remaining classes for 2018 are on Oct. 13 or 25, as well as Nov. 17 and Dec. 12 at various times, and cost $20 (or $40 for both CPR and first aid training); go to www.eastpiercefire.org/page.php?id=169 for more information.