KINGSTON — North Kitsap Fire & Rescue officials say a 53-year-old man is alive today because the links in the “chain of survival” included well-trained and equipped people — some of whom were his own family members — who came together to give him his best chance.

A recent study of data submitted to a national registry shows that this kind of success is more common in Kitsap County than in other areas of the United States. Firefighters will reunite the life-saving team and honor the man’s children who performed CPR on Sept. 9, 7:15 p.m. at North Kitsap Fire & Rescue’s headquarters fire station.

The term “chain of survival” is used to describe the collection of links that, when strong, provide victims of cardiac arrest with the best odds for complete recovery, NKF&R spokeswoman Michele Laboda reported. The chain starts with early recognition of the emergency and a call to 911 to get responders on the way. The next link is CPR, followed by an automated external defibrillator (AED) to shock the heart out of a lethal rhythm. Paramedics form the next link, ensuring that the patient has a good airway, and delivering stabilizing drugs while transporting the patient to a hospital. The final link in the chain is hospital care where patients receive definitive treatment to correct the problem that caused the arrest.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in late April, a local family was taking advantage of spring weather to do chores around the house. Mark Potter, 53, was mowing his lawn. Mark’s stepson, Zachary Myers, 20, was on his way to wash a car when he saw his stepfather shut down the mower and start walking toward the house. About 10 minutes later, Kyleigh Potter, Mark’s 14-year-old daughter who had been weeding outside, came around the corner of the house to find her father unconscious and not breathing in a chair in the yard. Kyleigh screamed for help, sparking several 911 calls.

With the help of a friend, Mark’s wife, Suzie, lowered Mark to the ground as Zach joined his sister at their dad’s side. Kyleigh knew what to do. Just two weeks before, she had been practicing chest compressions in her ninth-grade health class at Kingston High School. Firefighters from NKF&R and Poulsbo Fire Department have been teaching CPR to every ninth-grader at the North Kitsap and Kingston high schools every year for more than 20 years. Zach received CPR training again three years ago through KHS’s athletic training program.

“Together, Zach and Kyleigh provided life-saving breaths and chest compressions,” Laboda reported. “Because the family’s efforts to reach 911 were made from cellular phones at their home near the water, the calls were received by towers in other counties. Suzie estimates that more than five minutes passed before a call was successfully transferred to the local 911 center, Kitsap County Central Communications. The region’s emergency dispatch center received the call at 2:39 p.m. and had crews from NKF&R en route by 2:41 p.m.”

The first firefighter/EMTs arrived just three minutes after dispatch from the nearby Hansville station and, noting the quality of the CPR provided by Kyleigh and Zach, asked them to continue while the team readied their equipment. The crew delivered two shocks to the patient and was administering a third as the paramedic unit arrived from Kingston at about 2:51 p.m.

After two more minutes of CPR, the firefighter/paramedic found that Mark’s pulse had returned. Within minutes, his airway was secured with a breathing tube, he was loaded into the paramedic unit and the crew was whisking him away to Bremerton’s Harrison Medical Center.

“Just over an hour after he was discovered in cardiac arrest, Mark was receiving life-saving treatment from physicians and other skilled team members at Harrison’s top-notch cardiac care facility,” Laboda reported. “Mark suffered no long-term deficits and walked out of the hospital just 10 days after the event.”

The study documenting Kitsap County’s success rates examined data on patients who go into sudden cardiac arrest. Cardiac arrest is defined as the absence of breathing and pulse. Without intervention, cardiac arrest always results in the patient’s death. Data on these patients is submitted to the Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival (or, “CARES” Registry). Kitsap County eclipsed the state and the nation in resuscitation rates for 2011, with local overall survival at almost 17 percent compared to the state’s record of 15.1 percent and the nation’s 7.7 percent.

The 2012 statistics are even more impressive for patients whose collapse is witnessed, receive bystander CPR and early defibrillation. In these cases, Kitsap County survival rates were 41 percent compared to 38.6 percent in the rest of Washington state and 31.7 percent across the nation.

Local experts in emergency medical services cite several factors in these success rates, such as coordinated efforts to promote CPR training, public access defibrillation, 911 call-receivers coaching callers in CPR, well-trained emergency medical personnel with cutting-edge knowledge and equipment, and the state-of-the-art cardiac care facilities and personnel of Harrison Medical Center.

Learn more about the CARES Registry at www.cdc.gov/dhdsp/cares.htm.

Kitsap County also had the highest percentage in Washington state of bystanders who stepped up to perform CPR on patients in cardiac arrest, according to the Kitsap County Emergency Medical Services and Trauma Council.

While the NKF&R personnel involved in Mark Potter’s rescue say they were just “doing their jobs,” they are enthusiastic about honoring Kyleigh Potter and Zachary Myers for their critical role in Mark’s positive outcome. Every link in the chain of survival is important but Craig Barnard, the NKF&R firefighter/paramedic on the scene that day, says that good CPR and early defibrillation were the pivotal factors for Mark.

Officials point to several important lessons from Potter’s story:

— State where you are when reporting an emergency, especially when using a cellular phone. It is common for cell signals to hit towers in nearby counties. Avoid time-consuming confusion by starting your 911 call with the name of the county and a general description of the type of emergency you’re reporting i.e., “I’m in Kitsap County and I need an ambulance.”

— Learn CPR. Contact your local fire department or the American Red Cross to get class schedules.

— Get close to an AED (automated external defibrillator). Many schools, athletic clubs, casinos and others places where people congregate have automated external defibrillators. Every fire engine and ambulance in Kitsap County is equipped with a defibrillator.

“Kitsap County’s EMS system is very good because every link — including the 911 center, bystander CPR providers, emergency responders and Harrison Medical Center — is strong,” Laboda reported.