Couple Has First Kiss When The Guy Needs CPR

A California couple had a memorable first kiss, one that saved the man’s life.

It happened last October, when 56-year-old Max Montgomery took Dr. Andi Traynor paddleboarding at a Santa Cruz beach.

Things were going well until Montgomery suddenly felt a burning sensation in his chest and became exhausted, according to San Francisco station KGO TV.

When Montgomery got out of the water, he fell to the ground. 

Luckily, Traynor, a 45-year-old anesthesiologist based in Palo Alto, knew CPR, which she performed until paramedics arrived to take him to a local hospital.

“I wasn’t thinking about anything other than taking care of him,” she told KTLA TV.

Montgomery’s heart was stopped for 17 minutes until doctors used a defibrillator on him.

The seriousness of the situation meant that their first kiss lacked romance, but Alexander Baker, who recorded the rescue, told KTLA that Montgomery is grateful it was caught on camera.

“His first kiss was, they call it, the kiss of life,” Baker said.

Montgomery underwent coronary bypass surgery the next day, and he told Traynor he would understand if she didn’t want to keep seeing him.

“But she told me she was not going anywhere,” he said, according to The Daily Mail.

The two are still going strong and have even started a nonprofit called Paddle4Good, which helps create adventure activities for people with physical or developmental needs, according to Yahoo.

Best of all: The couple got a do-over on that first kiss.

“A few weeks after his surgery he was recuperating and we were on the beach just talking,” she said, according to The Daily Mail. “I said, ‘You can kiss me for real now.’”