There were no premonitions when Stew Snyder awoke Dec. 29.

Yet before the day was out, he would die and return to life.

He'd rather have skipped the entire experience. Still, Snyder had some luck, a man fortunate to be in the right place when it mattered most.

At 10 a.m., he and his wife, Pat, residents of Sewickley, were getting some exercise at The Mall at Robinson with fellow members of The Mall Walkers Program.

They were trekking around the upper level in front of Lenscrafters, when Pat Snyder glanced at her husband and thought for a second he was bending down to tie a shoelace. It took another second before she understood he had collapsed and fallen on the floor.

"His face was dark purple," she said. "I called out for help."

An off-duty police officer, who was in Lenscrafters, rushed to Snyder and administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation but was unable to revive him. "People standing in back of me were praying," Pat Snyder remembered.

She talked to her husband, telling him to wake up, but Snyder was unaware of the commotion going on around him. "I was just out," he said.

In the meantime, someone at Lenscrafters telephoned a request for help, which was relayed to the mall's maintenance, security and management departments.

Security Director Jeff Sandstrom and security officer Mark Miksic raced to the scene.

"When we arrived, nothing was being done. He was lying on the right side, blue from the neck up. Jeff and I rolled him on his back and cut open his shirt and T-shirt. Jeff asked the crowd to move back," Miksic said.

Snyder had no pulse and wasn't breathing.

Miksic applied an automatic external defibrillator to jump start Snyder's heart with an electrical shock.

"I gave him one whack, that's all it needed. I checked for a pulse. He had a good pulse, but he wasn't breathing yet," said Miksic, a former paramedic. Miksic grabbed a rescue mask that is part of the AED kit, placed it over Snyder's face and breathed through the mask into his mouth.

"I gave him two breaths and he started breathing on his own," Miksic said. "I rubbed his chest with my fist and immediately his eyes opened."

At that point, a Robinson Emergency Medical Services team arrived and transported Snyder to Ohio Valley General Hospital, where he was stabilized.

The next day, he traveled by ambulance to Presbyterian University Hospital for a quadruple bypass. The 68-year-old now is a little weak but "doing fine" and is in cardiac therapy.

"If he'd been anywhere else, he wouldn't be here today," Pat Snyder said. "I don't know who runs that mall, but it's wonderful they put those [AEDs] in there."

There are six AEDs at the mall designed to help revive people undergoing cardiac emergencies. One is in a mobile van that security guards use to patrol the parking lot 24 hours a day in case someone needs medical assistance.

Five are inside the building. Three are on the lower level, one near Kaufmann's, another near Waldenbooks and a third at the Guest Services area. Two are on the upper level near Kaufmann's and at the food court.

They were installed by Forest City Enterprises, the mall owners. The decision to put them in was "of our own volition. There was no state requirement," Sandstrom said. They are for use by the general public, not just security guards or paramedics.

The black and gold emergency kits, mounted on walls, look like small picnic coolers. Inside each is a turn-on switch.

Once that's activated, a computer message on a small screen and an audio accompaniment instructs the user on what to do: First, tear open a paper packet and take out two electrodes and place them on the victim's chest in a position that's illustrated on the packet. The machine will analyze the patient's condition and advise the user what to do.

If an electric shock is in order, the user will be told to hit a button marked "shock." The machine again analyzes the situation and gives further instruction. As a safety catch, the machine allows the user to administer a shock only when it determines such action is needed.

By that time, it's likely someone from the mall staff, trained in life-saving skills, will be on the scene.

Sandstrom said bystanders who choose to help out in an emergency such as Snyder's are covered by an amendment to the state Good Samaritan Act, which went into effect in December 1998. The amendment protects an untrained person who prudently and in good faith uses an AED from any civil damages.

Snyder said he felt no out-of-body sensations and no vision of light, which people sometimes report during near-death experiences. He remembers nothing of his ordeal.

Pat Snyder said her husband had a defibrillator surgically installed to control his heart rhythm but "has no damage to his heart at all. The bypass was successful, the heart was strong."

Recently, the Snyders stopped back at the mall to visit with the Mall Walkers and thank Sandstrom and Miksic for their help. They hope also to learn the name of the man who administered CPR to Snyder during the first moment he was down so they can meet with him.

In addition to Snyder, one other cardiac emergency has occurred at the mall since it opened in 2001. Miksic said that man was unresponsive to all attempts to save him and died in the parking lot.