Pete Shandrick, a Moon municipal worker, was hit with electric shocks at least twice April 25, fought against nine men, was three times thought to be dead, was refrigerated and was in full lip lock with one of his co-workers.

Still, he and his wife, Linda, consider it to be the luckiest day of their lives.

"I could have been attending a [his] funeral today," Mrs. Shandrick said Tuesday, shortly after bringing her husband home from Allegheny General Hospital. "Instead I'm here with my husband."

Were it not for a perfect set of circumstances and the fact that everyone involved had been trained and had the best equipment and procedures available, Mr. Shandrick's life might not have been saved.

Mr. Shandrick, 49, and two other workers were digging out a pond in Moon Park when Mr. Shandrick suffered from what doctors call "sudden cardiac death" -- a heart attack so sudden and complete that it simply shuts the heart off in an instant.

Such attacks are fatal in 95 percent of cases, and of the 5 percent who live, many suffer debilitating brain damage.

"I can't tell you how many times we've saved people only to later remove them from life support because they were brain dead," said Tony Farah, the Allegheny General cardiologist who treated Mr. Shandrick.

But Mr. Shandrick's co-workers -- George Jones and Dave Kuhn -- were trained in CPR, as are all Moon employees. And there was an automated external defibrillator at the nearby equipment barn, as there are at all Moon buildings.

Mr. Kuhn said he and Mr. Jones started cardiopulmonary resuscitation as soon as they saw Mr. Shandrick go down, then used a township radio to call their boss, Jim Henkemeyer, to bring the defibrillator.

The men found themselves struggling to remember their training in the stress of the moment, but the machine told them what to do.

"I'm sitting there thinking, 'oh, no, we're going to be sitting here reading directions,'" Mr. Jones said. "And finally it started talking, and it was like, 'oh, yeah!' It all came back to us." They delivered the shock, and got a heartbeat.

Meanwhile, Mr. Henkemeyer had used his radio to summon Valley Ambulance who called for a helicopter.

Mr. Shandrick was semiconscious at that point, and was cooperative -- up until EMS workers tried to insert an intravenous line. Mr. Shandrick, a weight lifter, got combative. It took nine men to hold him down.

Finally, his wife, a secretary for the township, arrived and dove into the pile, yelling at him to be calm. He seemed to recognize her voice, and they managed to load him into the ambulance. Then his heart stopped again, and the EMS workers shocked it again. He would later be shocked a third time.

That was the first phase of the perfect scenario. The second came as he arrived at the hospital. Thanks to a new program initiated by Dr. Farah, emergency medical services personnel can diagnose heart attacks, send information to Allegheny General's cardio unit and deliver the patients directly there -- bypassing the emergency room.

With "his muddy boots still on," as Dr. Farah put it, Mr. Shandrick was in surgery immediately, and doctors had his coronary artery reopened 94 minutes after he first fell.

The third phase of the perfect scenario was the refrigeration process. Patients are infused with cold saline solution, dropping their core body temperature to about 91 degrees Fahrenheit. That causes most biological functions to stop.

Dr. Farah said much of the damage from a heart attack comes from what are called free oxygen radicals -- molecules released by dying cells that cause other cells to die as well. Even if a patient's heart has been restarted, free radicals can keep destroying both brain cells and heart muscle cells.

But cooling the body brings the free radical activity to a virtual halt, breaking the key link in a deadly chain reaction. After about 12 hours, the patient can be rewarmed without damage and with the chain reaction halted.

As excited as Dr. Farah is about both of the new AGH programs, though, he noted that none of it would have mattered were it not for the actions of the people at the scene.

"He happened to be surrounded by people who knew how to use an AED, and had an AED on hand," Dr. Farah said.

Mr. Shandrick is home with his wife, talking about appreciating life and cracking jokes about needing to go to church more often because he never saw any beautiful light while he was clinically dead.

His wife, meanwhile, struggled to adequately express her gratitude to all the people who acted in coordination to deliver her husband back to her. "How do you thank someone who truly, truly, truly saved your life?" she asked. "I thank God, and the community I live in."

Mr. Shandrick remembers almost nothing of the drama that centered on him the day he died three times. He does have one brief memory of having his heart shocked.

He said he thought he was at the gym, because one of the police officers on hand is a workout partner.

The rest is lost, and in fact he lost all memory of the two days leading up to that day.

Ironically, that lost time included a visit to the funeral home for a friend, who died of a heart attack while running on a treadmill, trying to get back into shape.

"If he'd been around guys like I was, with an AED there, he would have ended up in the same boat I did," Mr. Shandrick said. "Instead, I'm at the funeral home for him."

Will such sobering thoughts change him? Not dramatically. A dedicated volunteer firefighter and community member, he wants to keep on helping people.