Injuries to members. No gym owner ever wants something bad to happen, but the reality is that stuff is unavoidable. Every so often, someone is gonna get injured, even though fitness training is incredibly safe. The best plan, be prepared, in fact, be over prepared so that you can manage any situation. It's worst case scenario. Week on Run, a Profitable gym. And I'm Mike Warton .
Please hit subscribe wherever you're watching or listening. Today my guest is gonna explain how he managed an incredibly stressful event at his gym, like a pro with the help of his staff and members. It's gonna be a great story for you guys to listen to Eric Zeer . He runs Warlock Athletics in New York and in Midgut a member had a heart attack.
This is just a tough one for everyone to think about right now, but here's the good part. I'll , I'll give you the skip to the ending. The member's wife, a nurse later said, if it had happened anywhere else, he would've died. So there's good news at the end of this story. Eric's here to tell the tale and help you be at your best if the worst ever happens at your gym . Eric, welcome. How are you doing today,
Mike? I'm great man. Thanks for having me on and uh, it's good to see you again since the summit.
Yeah, I'm super pumped about this 'cause the CrossFit and fitness community is hurting a little bit right now, so we're gonna give 'em some good news. First, tell it , I mean, stressful situation, but the good news is that you saved somebody's life at your gym. Tell me the whole story. What happened? How'd you guys do this?
Yeah, let's kinda , uh, start from the beginning. So I was actually at home. It was like 4:00 PM little after and like, you know, class normally does their warmup does normal thing. And I got a phone call from my head coach and I missed the first phone call and within 30 seconds the phone rang again. And I, knowing that she was calling me twice in a row , I'm like, something is wrong. Yep .
I picked up, she goes, Hey, so-and-so was on the floor, ad is attached to him . And I said, put the phone down, I'll be there in five minutes. And I lived probably about 10 minutes from the gym.
How fast were you going? Do you remember ?
Uh , uh, I was probably going about 70 and a 35, like 30 double the speed limit at that point.
Life is a risk. Yeah .
Yeah. And, and just to , to be there, like that's the instinctive reaction. Right? And without getting in a car accident myself, we had a member going to cardiac arrest whole house on a Monday. You got 10 people in classes. You got a semi-private going on, you got a PT going on. You got parents kids in the building. I mean, like you , you have a full house with three. And and I lucked out.
Were like, these are two outta three coaches that were on right there were are my full-time staff members. So they were luckily knew exactly what to do. One called 9 1 1, 1 of our members is actually as , as lucky as this may sound, is a pa he's a cardiac pa and is knows the , the member's dad very, very well. Guy hit the floor within 15 to 20 seconds. Our members, one is also a nurse, hands on chest with CPR.
One of our coaches grabbed the a ED sprinted right over within 60 seconds this guy was hooked up to the a ED cleared for shock, shocked and then brought back to life and continued with CPR. And this is all within, within two minutes for , for which them seemed like an eternity. And we're also very fortunate where the firehouse EMT is 400 yards up the road and it still felt like an eternity before they got there.
Our , our member came back from a four oh meter warmup run. It wasn't like we were working out in the middle of a crazy workout. Uh, we were actually doing a memorial wide for Lizer doish . So you , you know, you're , you're trying to do everything right and then this catastrophic event happens and a a guy is , hits the floor, foaming at the mouth, not the phone call that I don't wanna get as an owner.
Paramedics came brought to the hospital, the whole nine . Luckily where if it , it , when we got to the hospital, I met his wife there. I followed along, you know, she , she literally said point blank , this happened anywhere else on the golf course where he was driving while we were shopping today, he'd be dead.
It happened that he was 60 feet from an a ED in our facility, which I'm again very fortunate where my business partner is a career paramedic and EMT and firefighter. So he's always harped on it over and over again. And obviously you try not to roll your eyes 'cause you hear it so many times that we need to practice this thing, but we'll never roll our eyes ever again.
And this thing saved time one of our members' life.
Yeah. And that's what a what a story. And , and I can't imagine how stressful that would be for obviously for you as the owner, but also for the people that were there right at ground zero when this happened. And this is what I was getting at in the intro, like four oh meter warmup, run for a member of your gym. That's not preventable. Like that's just a thing that happens. There's nothing you could do on that one.
That's all you have to do is manage the situation. Now I gotta ask you this, the response time and the reaction was so fast, like you said, like, you know, within like seconds people are on him. You've got Yeah. And you've got like a , a d hooked up and everything is just moving at warp speed. That doesn't just happen, right? You can't do that if you haven't planned. How did you guys make this happen?
What did you rehearse in the past or what are your procedures and plans?
Yeah, so , um, we actually have a , a full plan and go through regularly training and semi-annual training for the a ED . So all the coaches on board know how to handle it, know what it sounds like, know where it's located. It lives in the same spot. The , it's funny, like we had the protocol for exactly what goes on. What we didn't prepare for was how to respond to it afterwards. Ah , right.
Like as in like communicating with the members. What does class continue? Does it not continue? Like do you move everybody outside? Do you keep 'em inside ? Like there's just a lot of things and it happens really fast.
I'm gonna ask you about that part. But yeah, let finish off the first part about how you prepare and then let's get into like how you manage that, the , the after effects .
Yeah. So we, I mean we go through regular training with, with the a ED , we go through the CPR course, we make sure that our coaches are prepped so they know exactly what goes on and how to use that. The great part is the a ED once it's hooked up is super simple to use. But again, even in a dire situation, it seems seconds seem like minutes.
And we've even had some of our coaches who are trained out to be like, man, I couldn't act fast enough. And they , they know what goes on with this thing. They've seen it before, they've pulled it out. But it's much different in a game time situation where they need reps. Uh, 'cause there's no real life pressure. You practice like I see it. Yeah, you can't.
And even just try to create some sort of fresher point for the members to be , or the coaches to be able to like actually practice it with a little bit of a penalty. Probably a better idea in retrospect.
But you still can't, you can't recreate that. You just can't, you know, no matter what you do, that stress of this person that you care about on the ground, like you can't, you can't plan for that. So,
You know . Yeah . And , and even the PA said he is like, listen, like I do this for a living and it was stressful for me 'cause I know that member, he's like, that gave me major anxiety. And even, and like , and this is the guy who's a trained professional that does it for a living.
Well, I mean, listeners, it just a quick lesson here. Obviously if you haven't practiced this stuff at all, you should start practicing this stuff because it's gonna be way more stressful. Like the a ED seems just like this. Oh, it's talking to us, this box and that whole thing. When it's real, that practice is gonna come in handy. 'cause you're gonna remember stuff.
So, so you , how often did you , did you drill your plan?
Yeah , I mean, every time someone came on board , they went through that piece and usually one of our coaches actually taught it to the member. We have a full written SOPA full document for it. And again, like even it's , it gets checked and inspected monthly. So this way like the , the , we still know that the battery is still operating, the pads are up to date .
It , it's funny, but like when we actually opened our gym, we didn't have enough funds to even buy an a ED , right? So like we're kind of , and it's not required by New York state to have an a ED within a gym. You actually need to have 500 members in your gym in order to be required to have an a ED .
That's interesting.
It's crazy. It's, it's absurd actually, when you think about it. Um, and I was really fortunate, one of our members said, Hey listen, like I'm gonna cut you a check for 500 bucks, put that towards the a ED . And that helped us significantly. So within 18 months of opening, we were able to purchase an A ED.
Not only that, but again, like having a paramedic and firefighter that owns the business, like, hey, like this is a top priority for us. So like , it's, it's literally sat in a box on a wall for eight and a half years other than like being tested and being checked monthly. It , it's literally sat there seeming like, man, I hope we never have to use this thing .
And then when you did, the pads were current, the battery was working, your staff was trained. And you mentioned a word that I always highlight on the show. You said SOPs, no successful gym owner that I've ever spoken to does not have SOPs and Stan like standard operating procedures, rules and tasks, everything laid out. If you wanna be a successful gym owner, this is essential. And in this case it was lifesaving.
So, you know, kudos to you for doing that and having this prepared. And then for, for having, you know, your staff and people manage the situation when it happened. Because like you said, game day is not the same as practice and there is just no way to stim to simulate this kind of thing happening.
So talk to me now, like, you , you , your staff responded two minutes, the whole thing goes down then what, obviously you've got a , a fire hauler, you said 400 meters away, right? Or 40 yards away. People show up and well , what about the rest of the people at this point? You had a gym with about 20 people in it.
And again, like systems, right? So like we actually, because we check everybody in, we use mindbody, we check everybody in. We know exactly who's in the building, right? And like, so those attendance records to make sure, like, follow up is everyone, is everyone okay? Like, did everyone anyone need to leave? We have all that stuff. But in terms of like what happened afterwards, it feels like a whirlwind.
And I couldn't imagine if I had to coach afterwards and I couldn't actually like be able to help the member and help its family and , and like I could literally clear I had everything cleared up my plate because I don't coach any classes. I don't do any PTs where I could literally be like , cool guys, this is how we handle this thing. I could take care of my staff.
You know, if, if this was before I started with you guys when I was working 80 hours a week, it would've not only, even though it was a great turnout, it might not have turned out that way. It could have seriously affected the relationship with members and people afterwards because they don't feel like they're taken care of.
But because I literally could put all of my effort into, cool, let's debrief tonight with the staff. Let's debrief with the members that were in the building in our own like zoom meeting. Let's make sure that I follow up with the member and actually be there in the hospital for him to visit. Right? Like these things, if you're coaching all the time, you can't do.
And because we're set up for success from the likes of you guys, of what we did for the past three years, man, was I able to really help everyone across the board. But in terms of what went down afterwards, it again, it felt like a whirlwind. If it seems like it , it's a little bit harder to describe right now. That's because it's exactly what it felt like.
And I , and I've, I've shared that with, with a bunch of people now. I know that , um, afterwards, basically we went to the hospital, my coaching staff continued coaching, talking about it afterwards. If we had to, when somebody goes in the cardiac arrest, I would've just had our , our staff clear the entire gym and just have them go outside this way. Like whatever's going on. They don't have to witness that piece.
Uh , and we've had both sides of it in terms of like, we've had professionals in terms of Dutchess County, like stress relief that I put these like name of it. But like they said, Hey, it would've been better if you did this. Firefighters saying, Hey, it's good that you kept everybody in there so they could actually see what goes on in case it does happen again. They know how to save somebody's life. That's
Interesting. I wouldn't have thought that.
So like we , we've had both ends of the spectrum and then even for the staff being like, man, like I need to go back to coaching right now. Like, are they okay to coach right now? Like they just witnessed a member go down, cardiac arrest, phone from the mouth, be shocked back to life. Like, and my staff wasn't okay.
Like it took us probably at least 10 days to kinda get back to it and like, it was like random crying sessions throughout the week. Feelings hit in the middle of a workout, you know. And these are, these are top level coaches like an L two and L three and another L two that have been doing this for five, 10 years that are seasoned veterans at this. One of them was in the Air Force, right?
Like really struggle with this part. So like us debriefing as a team that night before we even put anything out to the rest of the community, massive , massively important. Obviously the member still in the hospital. I left for a little bit, actually dropped his car back off at his house 'cause he obviously couldn't drive it.
Debriefed with my team that night for about 45 minutes to an hour as long as they needed to, to kind of get stuff out. And then my business partner and I created basically just , uh, some information as to what was going on to our members. We left the name out of the member.
We stated just the facts , but we wanted to make sure that our members knew what went on so they didn't hear it through the grapevine and provided some really clear information. So there was no rumor mail . Right.
It also allowed us to address and let our members know, Hey, listen, tomorrow night we're gonna actually have a debrief for anyone that was in the facility when it happened so that this way we can kind of break down, we can share some stories about it, make sure that you guys are okay.
Uh, we also chatted with, there's like a Dutchess County , uh, I gotta remember the exact acronym, but basically like an incident stress debrief team. And we reached out to them, they gave us some really great resources that we could share with our community and I shared within the Tinker group.
And then from there we basically sat down with our members and another debrief two days later with our team, again, again checking in daily with these guys to make sure they're good to go. Remember meantime is still in the hospital for the next four or five days, gets an a ED put in, gets, make sure he gets the deluxe version of that. But again, still checking into him to make sure that he's doing okay in there.
It was a lot. I mean, like , uh, I'm used to kind of being thrown into the fire and , and as a gym owner, like, and even as a person like this was hard. It was really, really hard. And like, I'm fairly removed from my gym where I don't have to do a ton of work in the gym. So I couldn't imagine having this happen and being a gym owner that like is in the mix of coaching everything.
I wouldn't be able to handle it.
Yeah. So you mentioned our tanker program and listeners what that is. It's a , it's our program for our top level gym owners. And Eric is in that. Uh, and what that essentially means is he's making more than a hundred thousand dollars a year from his business. He doesn't have to work on the business, or sorry, in the business, pardon me. He can work on the business. So he's a little bit freed up from stuff.
He has freedom of time , he has freedom of money. He can choose which roles he wants to take in the gym and it can be, he can coach if he wants to, but he doesn't need to or want to. So he's doing something else.
And what that does is gives you the freedom of time, which then an instant like this happens and he can behave like a CEO would step in and absolutely manage the situation with his partner to take care of his member, to take care of his staff, to take care of the other members that are outside the , the , that weren't , maybe weren't involved in the incident, but are still affected by it.
That's why we want you to be a great gym owner because if you are wearing every single hat in your business and something like this happens, you are gonna coach the class, you're gonna do the a ED, you're gonna have to manage all the follow all by yourself. It's chaotic.
And we want you to have that freedom so that if something happens or if something doesn't happen, you just wanna work on your business, you can do it. So that's what the Tinker program is. And mentorship can help you get that freedom of time. Now did you say that you, you ended , you didn't cancel classes or you kept things going after the member was taken out? We
Kept things going. I think if it was a different result where he wasn't shock back to life, it would've been a very different situation at that point. We would've shut down classes for the remainder of the day.
But seeing like he was, you know, back to life, didn't really know, know exactly how we got there, but given a thumbs up on the way out to everyone, you know, it , the , the crazy part is that one of our members who actually provided CPR as soon as she was done, got up and just jumped right in, ready to start the workout, started kettlebell swings, like didn't even bat an eye right?
But like, again, a true professional and what she does and what he does to be able to handle those things.
Would you, going back, if something this would happen again, would you run continue the classes after that? Even if it was a successful revival?
Yes, I would have it in in that situation. The only thing that I , we probably would've done differently is like if he went down, like I said before, moved the rest of the class outside just to kind of like give that a little bit of space.
And that makes sense. But it's interesting that the firefighters even said that having people view something like that as traumatic as it can be, can actually save lives down the road. Like that's an interesting kind of, kind of takeaway that I wouldn't have thought of.
Uh, it's obviously stressful for them, but if they're like, I've seen this before and I know that I need to do this and grab this and do that, that's actually a really good skill to kind of have. So that's an interesting one that I hadn't considered. Uh, had you ever thought of that ?
No, I never thought of that before. And it , it's, it's one of those things where like these guys are around it all the time, right? Like they live and breathe it. So like, again, like I'm like, all right , that kind of makes sense. I get that piece and at the same time you're like, man, I still wanna protect my, my people and my community from seeing what goes on with that. 'cause it , it can be very traumatic.
I think the other part is that, that I think people at least I didn't realize was that like our response to that was what it was like again, like we lucked out where it was a really fortunate, we could have done everything right and it could have ended the other way, right?
But at the same point, the fact of how we responded with checking in our members debriefing, giving them resources, it showed that we were a professional business. And the members that might imagine themselves in that situation were able to see like, man, like I'm in really good hands. So it allowed us to, at least in my mind, allowed us to double down the buy in from our members.
'cause we're like, listen, like you guys did everything you're supposed to do . You communicated with us. You made sure that we were debriefed, you gave us resources. You , you made sure that like the staff was okay, you're doing everything you're supposed to do. And we feel really good about that is if I was coaching again, I would've missed a lot of these steps.
I probably wouldn't have been as good of a communicator as I would have if I didn't have the time for it. But I was able to sit there and like craft a post, make sure that we made sure that like everything was communicated the right way.
I was able to have free time the next day just to be at the gym from 5:30 AM till nine when I'm not normally there just to hang out with members and maybe a answer a few questions and let them just like vent to me a little bit just to be there versus like if you're in classes and coaching all the time, like you don't have that opportunity.
So I think that like me having that bandwidth for my members in that respect was an absolute game changer.
Yeah. And I love the stuff that you did where you, you cared for your staff. You had some meetings with those guys and said like, Hey, this was stressful. What can we do to acknowledge what's going on? You did the same thing for members. And so you're having these, you're out , you're reaching out and caring for people who are affected by this even though they weren't the person indirectly in the incident.
They're still suffering through it. And you said, you know , you've experienced people with tears and stuff. I love that you did that. Chris Cooper's talked a lot about the calm model of leadership. I'm gonna put a link in the show notes, just a resource of that that's gonna be very helpful for you listeners at your gym.
But what I wanna highlight here is that, you know, you communicated and that's super important because one of the things I can't stand as a media guy is watching rumors spin up. And you know, you mentioned it , the rumor mill goes, all of a sudden is this happened that happened, it was four people and this and that .
And it's like, you need to get out front of things in a professional manner and say, here's what happened, here's what we're doing. And lead be a leader. If you let things go wild by themselves, you get rumors and stuff gets really bad. It's especially important with injuries and things like that because people are worried, you know, you gotta reach out. Obviously you reached out.
Was uh , was his wife at the gym by chance or was , uh, somewhere else?
No. So it's actually really funny. So she actually somehow tracked down the ambulance on the drive there. Whoa. And like literally merged right behind it. And he's sitting up and he can see everything going on behind. He was like, I thought you were gonna rear end us about three times at least. And Wow . Yeah. It , it was so yeah, she, she found her way there. I'm so grateful to that.
Chris shared the calm , uh, resource earlier that week. 'cause I actually used that for when we posted about Lazar do . So it was super helpful. So I actually already had a rep . That's that's right. Right , right . So like I made, I made the post in my community about that piece and I was like, oh my gosh, I already know how to do this thing. 'cause Chris already gave me the system for it.
We need to use it again. So all of a sudden, like one rep probably not as good two reps. I I've done a hundred percent more work. So now it able , uh, it allowed me to be a little bit better at it. So like, again, kudos to you guys.
Well I , that's, I didn't realize the timelines there. That's very interesting. 'cause yeah , Chris did share that resource. We did a special podcast with , uh, Bonnie Skinner as well, talking about managing , uh, you know, traumatic situations in relation to the CrossFit games and any, it could be applied anywhere, obviously. I forgot that we had done that right around the time of this.
So it's crazy that you saw that in advance and had that top of mind.
The the other crazy part about this, we , I forgot to mention was that like, this was during a memorial wide for Lizer do like, this was the Monday after the CrossFit games and like it just happened. I'm like , I'm like, so like we just got hit with that as a CrossFit community. We now have our member that it just, when the cardiac arrest, I was like, man, like this, talk about like being thrown to the wolves.
It felt, it literally felt like I was thrown like a dryer and just being tumbled around it . It was, it was a tough week,
But you still manage it like, like a pro and like the response was so amazing and that it , you got the best possible result in something like this. We're able to show your community what a, you know, group of fitness professionals. You're, are you making any changes to your emergency plans based on this incident?
And uh , the reason I'm asking this is because other people who haven't gone through it might be able to see some places where they can update their plans.
Yeah. So in terms of the, the response of what we have with our current plans, not gonna change anything other than like if an incident does happen, we're gonna end up moving people outside.
But that was battle tested. You , you , you tested that like it worked
. Yeah. What we are gonna change is all, some of our responses afterwards 'cause a lot of that stuff we created on the spot and we're still kind of evaluating that between like the communication with the members, the debriefing of the staff, and again, it's incident to incident. We we're trying to create like a general framework for how to respond to that.
If it is like say members are outside and someone gets struck by lightning, right? Like you try to create like a general framework, but some of these things like you just can't possibly imagine until it actually happens. But like in terms of the process afterwards, we're probably not gonna change too much. Just how we respond and communicate to the members afterwards. That was our kinda like first runaway unfortunately.
No, that makes sense because everyone looks at an emergency action plan and you have your steps of like, you know, you will call the hospital at this number. You will go stand on the side of the road and wave down the ambulance and you will do this and you'll do CPR, but then it kind of stops there. Most emergency action plans that I've seen just stop and, and that's it.
And there's no , like what happens afterwards when, you know, the gurney goes out and the sirens go to the , uh, hospital and the rest of us are kind of just standing around and you realize and found out how to live through it, that there needs to be something else there.
So I guess, you know, if listeners, if you're out there, if you have an emergency action plan, at least put some, like a little bit of railway tracks in place to say what happens next? How are we dealing with, how are we communicating with everyone who doesn't know but is part of the community? How are we managing the people who had to deal with the incident?
How are we managing the people who maybe didn't have to deal with it but saw it and are affected by it? How are we managing the people who weren't even there but are still very affected by it? Maybe this guy's best buddies are in a different class or something like that. You probably can't lay all that out because as you said , uh, Eric , everything is so different.
These incidents are so specific, but just a general plan. We are going to communicate and we are going to do this for the staff and we're gonna do this for the members. Just like a three part thing might be a good idea. Would you, would you think that would be wise Eric? Or what ? Would you add anything to that?
Yeah, so I mean the the other thing too, and this is again brought up by our staff, is like, he's like, I didn't know whether to like start class right away or like kind of get back to it. And again, like they're about to start the workout in like five minutes and like everyone's just been frozen out of everything for 15 minutes, right. And like giving everybody like, Hey listen, warm
Up five minutes ,
Grab a drink, use the bathroom. Yeah , bring it back together and even just have a conversation of like, hey, if you're not okay to work out right now, like it's okay. Pack it up if you need to like sit on the sofa and hang out for a little bit before you even decide those things. Totally cool. If you're ready to rock and roll, you want to work out that's here.
'cause like we had some members like literally like pack up and leave 'cause it was that traumatic for them. And like, we're trying to keep ta I'm really fortunate, like we're I'm in the hospital with the member who went down. I have my staff members, my , my coaches following up with the members who had to leave because it was so traumatic.
Like , Hey, I called so and so just so you know, we had a really tough time with this. You should probably reach out. I'm like, perfect. But again, if , if you don't have a good staff in place and you don't have some of these people that are at least aware of who's going in and out and there's no , uh, documentation of who's in the building at the time, it's really hard to back trace some of that stuff.
And like everyone, when they work out in class, they are tracked. There's no open gym for us. There's no like free roaming around. If you're in the building, we're pretty much know that you're in there.
Yeah. And like, we're not gonna make this a business decision. But at the same time, you can imagine that if someone saw this left the gym very rattled and was, and , and no one reached out, that member may not come back. Right. It might be like just a really negative experience. And like, again, we're not about dollars and cents here. We're about caring for people.
If you reach, how much better is it if you reach out to them and , and say, Hey, I know you were in that class and you could , you know, you had to , what can we do? How can we help you work through this? That shows a huge professional level of care. And you can't do that without systems. Like you said, you can check your attendance report.
These people are here, they'll be contacted, we're gonna contact them a second time. We're gonna have a little zoom call for them or whatever. Anything that makes things better. And that all falls back on systems. Eric , as we did you remember you said you were gonna bring something up later on. Did you think of what it was?
Yeah, so there's a bunch of stuff. So , um, one of the things that most people don't realize is that like for the first 72 hours, at least for traumatic events like that, like it's very much, there's still a lot of ups and downs. Um, so we know with our staff that like, hey, like listen, you guys are experienced ups and downs. Even though we debriefed, it still might be really difficult.
Basically it takes like 10 days for you to kinda like back, get back to norm with that stuff. And so like after 10 days, we held another debrief to basically go, Hey listen, if you're still struggling with this, let's talk about it and show up.
It also gave us a really good indication as to if we needed to help people get additional help and resources outside of just doing a debrief and talking with our team and sharing what they saw and how they felt because it raised a little bit more of not like a red flag, but like, just like a pink flag. But like, hey, I'm , I'm really struggling and need some additional help.
Because like you said, like all of our members are people that are part of this community. We wanna make sure that like they feel safe, they feel like they're okay, not something that like they need to like carry with them and that's a burden that they need to hold onto , right? So like we wanted to provide a safe space for our members to do those things.
The other really great part that goes with this is that our , um, a ED is from a company called Heart Sign . Um , they're like a fairly big company. They actually donate an a ED of the recipient's life who it saved. So our member actually gets to pick an organization that they're get to donate an a ED to.
Because I like , I didn't even realize too that like how much information is in the aed, like the police department or not The fire department came back over, they had to export the data was there so they could give it to the heart doctor. There's like, they ran like a full report off of this so you can see exactly what's going on before you can see what's going on after as they get shocked. I didn't realize that.
Sure . Because it's analyzing heart rhythm to to determine whether it can even shock. I didn't realize that it tracked that it could be downloaded. That's incredible.
Yeah. So then they, they give that to the hospital so they can then understand exactly what went on, how
Long was this going, what was going on, how long . Yeah. Yeah . That's , that's critical stuff .
Um , we were also set up, so some of our members expressed like , Hey listen, like, not that I had to give CPR, but like I felt helpless. So we actually , uh, working with the American Heart Association and some other local , uh, companies are gonna host a CPR course for our members. Like one of those things you always kinda like kick the can down the road a little bit and you're like, yeah, yeah, we'll do it.
We'll do it. And like my business partner used to host and run the course and he's now in Florida, like he doesn't live in New York anymore. So like I now we're bringing somebody in to do that again .
Gonna dust off rescue Randy.
Yeah, we did, we did. We're gonna do, we did separate training for our staff again, just to make sure like everyone feels comfortable with it because some of our staff, like they've been through the training, but they might not have focused on it a hundred percent. They check the box, but then they go, oh wow, it's actually like a real situation and need to be prepared for this thing .
The other really awesome stuff is that like between like Dutchess County, the Arlington Fire and the Grange Fire Department, the American Heart Association, they're actually recognizing our members with awards who saved our members' life.
So like, so like it , it goes from this really hard, difficult piece and it's still hard to kind of talk about to being a really nice recognition for people who went above and beyond to save someone's life with CPR and hooking up to a ED in the blink of a second. So like super excited about that for our members and our staff.
And it , I'm imagining it must be just hugely emotional to, to see your dude in the hospital recovering and his wife and just like he's still there.
Yeah. I mean like I'm, I'm not a very huggy person and like she's like, I got my quota for like the next five years of hugs from you after today. It , it's, it's one of those things where again, like you , you're grateful that it happened within 60 feet of the a ED because it could have happened 200 meters out on a run, right? It could happen on the golf course, it could happen anywhere for this guy.
But it just happened that we had a cardiac pa a nurse, whole staff in there and an a ED 60 feet away. Like , uh, you should go play the lotto.
Let's close this out. What I'll give you, I'll give you a couple things. Listeners, check with your insurer and your local jurisdictions to find out what you are required to do. Because some places require you to have an a ED and it's not, if it's not over 500 members, it's just you need must have one as a fitness facility or whatever. Check those local regulations. Be sure you do that.
Uh, I would also recommend make sure that you have your coaches CPR certified. Make sure that's current. Eric, let's go a little bit further. Based on your experiences here, what are some other key takeaways, simple stuff people can do right now today to make themselves more prepared for something that could be very well would be very stressful.
Yeah, I , you know, it's funny, I actually wrote about this and , and shared a post. I'm gonna just pull it up real quick.
Yeah, tell us exactly. I think
It's , I think it's more important to be specific with it than me to kind of like read off the, the cuff.
One of the other things, and , and I'm gonna share this because I don't think people sometimes realize the benefit that goes with mentorship all the time , mentorship all the time, is that like, financially we wouldn't be able to be in the position that we're in if we weren't mentored by you guys and Anastasia and Ashley and Chris and everything goes into this thing.
The other really cool part is like, because we're in such a good position, we also wanna pay it forward and buy another a ED for a gym that's either starting off or can't afford it. So like, and to be able to do that for another community, whether they use it or not, like hopefully at some point they never have to use it. But if they are, they're prepared. I , you know, I , I'd rather have that be there.
So like we're really fortunate because of what you guys do with us to be able to help another gym out with that. So like it's really cool to be able to do that. Oh
That , you know , and they'll just say that that's one of the reasons that's kind of the foundation of Two Brain is Chris has always said he wants gym owners to be wealthy because they're some of the most generous caring people in the world and they're going to use their success to help others. And Eric , I think that's living proof of it. So that's what an incredible story.
And uh, whatever Jim gets that a EDI hope they never have to use it, but I'm glad they're gonna have it. Gimme what's on your list.
So number one obviously is have an a ED number two, overtrain your staff until they borderline hates you. . It's again, like you can't be over prepared for what goes on with this piece. Staff that are professionally trained on this and or full-time staff that know exactly what's going on. They're in the building more hours, makes a really big difference. Two of those coaches are there 40 hours a week.
The other one spends about like probably 20 hours a week in there. So he is borderline full time working at being able to have some sort of capacity and have a team being able to divide and conquer and knowing those roles massively important, right? Like the coaches knew that they needed to follow up with certain members. I was in charge of assigning people jobs.
We were able to divide and conquer and if I'm in the fire and doing everything, it , it doesn't work out very well. Emergency systems, you gotta have SOPs, fire drills and practice at game speed. I , you know, we're gonna implement more practices at game speed .
Whether there is a , uh, uh, like you said before, Mike, it's really hard to simulate a real life situation, but unfortunately I can put a burpee penalty to it that'll make it really uncomfortable. Or in a cell . Like you can create some sort of pressure externally. And we used to do this in soccer for pks, but like you can create something to make people a little bit more focused.
And maybe that's just reflecting back on what goes on.
Well you could even just have 'em sprint out. Say the member went down on your 200 meter turnaround on your warmup run. Its down there, sprint out with the a ED , you know, even something like that. And you, you better believe they'd be running hard. Yeah,
I , a staff debriefing especially it's something traumatic happens. I didn't realize the importance of that until talking with other professionals and that wasn't something that we planned for. So if something does happen that's traumatic, that staff debriefing, super important attendance tracking, make sure that like everyone is down like in the building, that you know, who's in there.
And then also the member debrief within 36 hours of the event. I , I think that that's super important. And, and even the communication with your members, again, we made sure that it was vague enough where they knew somebody went down. 'cause not everyone knows we have 200 members. Not everyone knows that. So-and-so went down and we don't wanna sit there and share his medical information.
However, we do wanna let you know, 'cause you're gonna probably hear it through a grapevine that some sort of thing went down. So just we tried to air mess out of caution with that while still communicating really effectively.
Yeah. Privacy concerns. But obviously you want the rumor mill to , uh, not spin up and people to think it was, you know, it was my husband at home if they hear something weird. Right? Yeah.
And then last but not least, but one of the hardest parts that I struggle with is like, how do I thank a guy and gal who just saved somebody's life in , in our gym, right? Like, I , I , I feel like I can't do enough. So trying to like whether that's like, yeah , obviously we send a fruit basket home to our member and some stuff like that while he is recovering.
But like, I don't, I can't even begin to fathom how to say other than like, thank you and like give them the shirt off my back for those members. But like, dude, you stepped up in a time where we most need you. I know it's your profession and even if it's not, but like, I don't know how to thank somebody for that when it's like that much of a game changer.
I think it's just right in the eyes. Thank you. And a firm handshake and I love you. You know, I think that's, I don't know what you can
Appreciate . No , I appreciate it . Maybe a few hugs too,
Not too , I know you're not a huggy guy. Yeah . But you know as many as you can . You can handle, and I'm gonna guess you probably have to file an insurance , uh, a report with your insurer. Is that correct?
Yeah, we, we filed it with the insurance. The, we reach out to the American Heart Association as well so they know what's going on. It it even like , um, heart sign , the company that does our ad actually gives us new pads since we used them and saved a life. I don't know if they do that the other way right now . I hope they would.
But it , it's, and the other really cool part, and it depends on your insurance company. We use CrossFit, RRG, they actually cover up to $25,000 in expenses for that member that's in the hospital. Um, so like, again, he doesn't have to pay for anything out of pocket in terms of that.
Um , so it was nice to be able to call and be like, Hey, listen, just so you know, anything up to that point we get to cover for you through the insurance company. Again, another level of professionalism that goes with that , um, that we were like again, super pleased about.
But if I don't have the time to, and Chris doesn't have the time to make those phone calls to follow up , like some gym owners might miss that piece. And that could be really big for someone who struggles with finances to have something like that happen.
I didn't know that was available and I guarantee a lot of other people don't know that that was available. So that's an interesting insurance clause to look into. Eric, thank you so much. You know, congratulations, high fives to your, your staff and community for, for taking care of something. Thank you so much for sharing this and not just sharing the incident, but giving us a concise action plan to take out of it.
Listeners, if you're out there, follow those steps. Eric just laid out all the stuff that you would need to do to respond just like his community did. Eric, I really appreciate your time and your story.
Yeah, Mike, I can't thank you enough. And , and if people wanna reach out at all they can. Again, some of that seems a little bit overwhelming with some of this ad stuff , even just to get it in place. Uh , happy to help if you wanna reach out at least like point you in an erection or , or assist with that. 'cause in New York, we need medical oversight. We need a doctor to sign off on this stuff.
But , uh, thank you again and uh, you know, if anyone needs help out there with this stuff, happy to to pioneer that and help 'em along.
Where can they find you If they wanna reach out ,
Warlock Athletics on Instagram. Great way to find us. You can also , uh, reach out to me personally to grow with Eric on Instagram as well . Um , or just shoot me an email . It's on the website warlocks
Com . If you're out there, take advantage of it. Upper level professional gym owner. Uh, his , uh, his gym saved a life. If you need some help, talk to him. Reach out that way. Eric, again, thank you so much. We'll have you back on the show at some point. I think probably related to some of your tin tinker level . Escapade escapades. I'm Mike Kin and this is what a Profitable Gym .
Thank you so much for watching and listening. Please subscribe on your way out wherever you are. And now here's two Brainin founder Chris Cooper with a final message.
Hey, it's two Brainin founder Chris Cooper. With a quick note , we created the Gym Owners United Facebook group to help you run a profitable gym. Thousands of gym owners, just like you have already joined in the group. We share sound advice about the business of fitness. Every day I answer questions, I run free webinars and I give away all kinds of great resources to help you grow your gym.
I'd love to have you in that group. It's Gym Owners United on Facebook, or go to gym owners united.com to join. Do it today.