RICHMOND, Ky. (WKYT) - He went to exercise but ended up in a life-threatening situation.

A Louisville reverend suffered a heart attack while at the Telford YMCA in Richmond. But he tells us some alert staff members there saved his life.

At the Telford YMCA in Richmond, their motto is to always help others.

"Anything the people need, I am there to accommodate them," said Della Mitchell, YMCA front desk staff member.

And that includes coming to the rescue of a man in cardiac arrest.

"I was on the cell phone making a 911 call, and I saw people standing around, and I looked and there's a gentleman laying here on the floor," said Mitchell.

The man was Harry Curry, a reverend and YMCA member in Louisville, who was only visiting the Telford YMCA.

"I was in the men's locker room, and I fell right into the door. So this man named Neil immediately got up, came, and found me and said he didn't know what to do," said Reverend Harry Curry.

After a man nearby got help, they lost him three times while administering CPR.

"We don't have anything. We don't have a pulse. We don't have this. I was getting no breath out of his body," said Mitchell. "We did CPR on him for seven minutes. Medical science says with a widow maker's heart attack, you have less than two minutes."

With Reverend Curry's life in the balance, seconds mattered.

"They begin to get a pulse and then they shocked my heart. The miraculous piece of all of that, as I understand it, is that my heart went immediately back into rhythm," said Reverend Curry.

He's alive, but they are thanking much more than those on hand that day.

"You hear different stories on television here or there, but I thought it's the 'Miracle at the Y,'" said Patsie Curry, Reverend Curry's mother.

Reverend Curry had three stints put in during surgery but says he's doing much better. He's already back to walking a couple miles a day.