Drama, Not Always on TV

It's pretty well known that CPR rarely works--though it seems like close to 100% on TV and in movies.

I was once acquainted with a successful administration of CPR, which would not be out of place in a Hollywood made for TV movie.

I was freshly married, had a brand-new degree in biology and had moved to the Boston area, which is where my wife grew up. The first job I had was as a temp in the quality control group of a company which made, and I think invented, pregnancy test kits. The company had been bought-out by a big NJ OTC drug and personal care company.  The feelings between managers from NJ and workers in the Newton MA facility were not all that hostile, but I came to realize that they had been.

I had occasion to explore the facility:  The floor I was on was production, quality and some offices, there was a middle floor which was lab space and the bottom floor assembled and packaged devices.  The middle floor was a ghost town--beautifully equipped lab space--expensive temperature controlled centrifuges, balances located on thick slabs of marble, but it looked as if everyone stepped out for a meeting and never came back. There were pens sitting on note pads, pipettes with tips in them sitting on bench tops, etc.  I asked about it and found out that on the day of the acquisition, all the research staff were told to put down what they were doing and escorted out of the building.  The plan (also the reason I was a temp) was to keep production in Newton only until the technology could be duplicated in NJ.  What the company had purchased was IP.  So, hard feelings toward the new owners.

A few weeks after realizing all of this, our team was on a lunch break and someone I didn't know came by to visit our manager and after words some of us new people asked about her. All I remember about her role in the company is that, like my manager, she was from the parent company, but more salient to this thread, a few weeks after the takeover she'd saved the life of a long-time and well-regarded worker at this site using CPR.