Cook spent between seven and nine minutes by the side of the road without a pulse. At best, one in 10 people survive this. He was that one. He equates it to Damar Hamlin’s experience as a safety for the Buffalo Bills. Hamlin’s heart stopped after he was hit in the chest by a Bengals player, not a flutter, but the rescue and recovery were very similar.
When he came to, the first thing Cook heard from Curry was, “I’m the one who’s been making out with you for the last three minutes.”
Communicating with the agency
As the CEO of a large holding company agency, Cook needed to quickly make a number of decisions from his hospital bed about how to communicate his collapse to colleagues. He gave his leadership team enough information to keep the agency informed so that employees learned through proper channels and not rumors, while also maintaining his privacy as much as he could.
“I learned a lot about finding that balance of keeping people informed enough to know what’s going on and to have confidence that you’re fine, but without going too far as to scare the entire company,” Cook said.
Over time, Cook opened up, seeing the value of being transparent and the impact his health event could have on not only the agency, but the community.
“The leadership lesson is I learned a lot about how to communicate and how to be vulnerable, and how it’s OK to talk about your own health a little bit,” Cook said.
In the hospital, one of the first people Cook heard from was WPP CEO Mark Read.
“He couldn’t have been more responsive and caring about it, and it meant a lot to me,” Cook said. And later, WPP board chairman Roberto Quarta became a bit of a mentor to Cook, after Quarta shared that he had had a similar experience. “[Quarta] gave me a lot of advice about how to think about it and how to regain physical and mental confidence.”
In the aftermath, VMLY&R has rolled out CPR training sessions across its offices, starting with Kansas City. The agency is also making sure employees know not only where automated external defibrillators (AED) are located, but feel empowered to use them in an emergency.
“There’s very few people that can tell you exactly where those are in an office or what they do or how to use them,” Cook said, adding, “I couldn’t have told you where the AED units were. And I’m not embarrassed to say I’m not even sure I knew how to use them before this incident.”