‘Dad wake up’: Elwood teen’s harrowing triple-0 call that saved his dad’s life

An Elwood teen is being hailed a hero after performing lifesaving CPR on his father – but it’s not the first time he’s saved his dad’s life. Listen to the extraordinary triple-0 call.

A local teenager has saved his own father from death on not one but two occasions in a true Melbourne miracle.

Elwood’s Kip Merton was just 15 when a triple-zero call taker talked him through giving CPR to his own father, who suffered a cardiac arrest while they were home alone in April last year.

One in ten survive, but Kip saved his dad, performing compressions in those crucial minutes before the “amazing” paramedics and firefighters arrived — and then did it all again the next year.

Elwood teen Kip has saved his dad’s life not once, but twice. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Kip, 16, heard a crash and found his father slumped against the wall on July 29, suffering an arrest his pacemaker was supposed to stop.

He said, despite the shock, he now knew “instantly what to do”.

“I was thinking, he’s already had his luck where he pulled through,” he said.

“What if he’s not lucky this time? That was what made me really worried.

“The odds of surviving are low.”

Yet, against all those odds, Mark Merton, 60, is still here.

Kip Merton, 16, and his dad Mark are reunited with paramedic Josh Trpenovski and triple-zero call taker Lauren Johnson. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

The proud father fought back tears this month as he met the incredible emergency workers who helped save him and heard the triple-zero calls for the first time.

He listened to Kip and the operator count to four over and over again, one for each compression, and his horrified wife — arriving home halfway through to find the unthinkable — yell out his name.

He heard Kip beg “dad, wake-up” for a second time as his school friend Kendyn Brown, who lives with the Mertons, rang triple-zero and said CPR had already begun.

As call taker Lauren Johnson urged Kip to keep going, his count of “breathe, breathe, breathe” rings out in the background, one heartbreaking plea for each compression.

Mr Merton said it was tough to hear what his son had gone through, but he was so proud of how calm he and everyone else was under pressure.

“It’s all happy tears, but also geez it was so close to being not that good,” he said.

“It’s a bloody hard job … he (Kip) had to basically do CPR for up to ten minutes.

Kip said the best advice was simple: call triple-zero and just “do what you’re told”.

“They’ll guide you through everything,” he said.

It’s why he and his overjoyed family joined with Ambulance Victoria for their Shocktober campaign to share the importance of bystander CPR.

Kip, Mark and Emma Merton and school friend Kendyn Brown, who rang triple-zero. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Paramedic Josh Trpenovski, who helped save Mr Merton, said public defibrillators boosted patients’ chances even further, and half of all patients who got their first shock from a public AED last year survived.

He said bystander intervention had the greatest impact on survival and encouraged everyone to do a course.

“For every minute that CPR is delayed, survival decreases by 10 per cent,” he said.

“Anyone can do it and everyone should give it a go.”

Mr Merton – recovering well and reassured Kip won’t need to go for a hat-trick – said they were “inseparable”.

“You love your kids, but when they go through what Kip did for me, so that we can be together for another 40, 50 or whatever years left, it’s just amazing,” he said.

He joked his son was especially excited for his Christmas presents this year, but Kip’s real gift is knowing, when he visits their favourite record shop or kicks a footy at the local, his dad will still be there with him.

Originally published as ‘Dad wake up’: Elwood teen’s harrowing triple-0 call that saved his dad’s life