Two Renfrew paramedics have spent years saving lives.  Now Sean Hackett and his wife Roxanne are spending every minute saving their son's life. Little baby Archer is only five months old but already he's gone into cardiac arrest and had two heart surgeries.  Now his parents, both paramedics, are hoping his story will help save his life and others. 

Whenever 5-month-old Archer goes to sleep, he is tethered to a heart monitor and watched closely by one of his parents. He could go into cardiac arrest at any moment.

‘It’s really hard to know your baby could die at any moment,’ says Sean Hackett, as he gazes lovingly at his son, ‘that this is really happening.’

Archer was diagnosed at birth with a deadly condition called Long QT syndrome.  The heart's electrical system can cause cardiac arrest.

In fact it did.  January 10th of this year, Renfrew paramedics got a call about a baby without vital signs.  They recognized the car; it was that of fellow paramedics Sean and Roxanne.

‘We put two and two together and realized where we were going and that it was a co-worker’s child,’ says Renfrew County paramedic Dave Libby, ‘and the stress was running high on the way to the call.’

‘When it's a friend it's a totally different ball game but you do what you have to do,’ adds Libby’s partner Jayne Campbell.

Before paramedics had a chance to arrive, Sean did CPR while Roxanne used the defibrillator the hospital had given them to shock little Archer's heart.

‘He was dead for about four minutes,’ says Sean, ‘and then we revived him and paramedics took him to the local hospital and then airlifted to CHEO.’

Archer now has a pacemaker along with his heart monitor.  His parents sleep in shifts to make sure he's okay.

‘We half-jokingly say we've been training all our adult lives to be this kid's parents,’ says Roxanne Hackett.

Now, they want to extend the training and teach the community about the importance of CPR and public defibrillators. 

Sean has organized a team of Renfrew paramedics to take part in the Heart and Stroke Ride for Heart in Toronto May 31st.  He's also offering free CPR training May 17th at the Renfrew Legion between 1 and 5 p.m. 

Archer is under their constant watch right now but that will change as he grows.  They know they will need the community behind them. 

‘If a sudden arrhythmia happens, we need the strangers around him to know how to do CPR,’ Sean says, ‘to save his life.’

Hackett’s team is called "Archer's Arrows" and you can support them on-line at www.ride for heart.ca.