North Newton man filmed first CPR training film

Duhhaine Waeker of North Newton plays a doctor who performs cardiopulmonary resuscitation in a 1960s training video, “Pulse of Life.”

By Blake Spurney

NORTH NEWTON—Duhhaine Waeker of North Newton performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the first training video of its kind in the 1960s.

Waeker, who will turn 93 in a couple of weeks, said Dr. Archer Gordon came up with the concept of CPR. The American Heart Association estimates that about 46 percent of people who suffer a heart attack outside a hospital receive CPR from a bystander.

“CPR has saved more lives than any medicine ever invented,” Waeker said. “And nobody knows the name of Archer Gordon. I’m unimportant, really, other than I was a witness to greatness.”

Waeker, who graduated from Newton High School in 1947, began working as a projectionist when he was 11 or 12 years old. He said he took some courses at Wichita State University and was one of the original people who worked at KAKE in Wichita. He ended up at the University of Iowa doing graduate work that included teaching and developing courses on television. Because of his union connections, he went to Alaska and Florida to film movies in the 1950s. Eventually, he ended up in Hollywood, where he worked as a writer, director and cinematographer.

Waeker said his first film was a medical film. He said he had to buy a cadaver for the film, which was the most expensive part of the movie. He said he specialized in medical films without any real intent. He got to meet Gordon through his work, which was at a time when only a couple of people knew CPR.

Waeker said medical staff previously would crack open a chest and massage a patient’s heart by hand

“I saw films where they opened them up right there and went to work on them,” he said.

Waeker said he ended up directing “Pulse of Life.” He said a doctor who was to perform in the movie wasn’t available when he shot the film. A producer told him to play the doctor. He told Gordon that he was the director, not an actor. Gordon put a coat on him and told him he was a doctor now.

“There wasn’t such a thing as a coronary care unit,” he said. “He literally put the white coat on me and the stethoscope.”

Waeker said the scene in which he performs CPR was shot about three times. The film ended up winning six major awards at the time, including Best Film in “general safety.”

Waeker said Jack Webb picked up on the concept of the life-saving technique, which led to the series “Emergency!” He said he worked for five years on the production side of the series starring Randolph Mantooth and Kevin Tighe. He said for years he would be interviewing people for his work on “Emergency!” and people kept telling him he looked familiar. They recognized him as the doctor in “Pulse of Life.”

Waeker said one day a neighbor suffered a heart attack during the lunch hour. The neighbor’s wife came over to tell him about her husband, and Waeker revived the man by performing CPR. He said the man lived another 15 years. He said his own life had been saved a couple of times from CPR.

“I just think it’s a shame that Dr. Gordon has never gotten credit for it,” he said. “He should have some kind of acknowledgement.”

Gordon died in 1994 at the age of 73. A story published upon his death by N.Y. Times Service noted that Gordon conducted ground-breaking studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago showing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which was developed by Peter Safar, was superior to the methods being used at the time.

Waeker said his experience filming underwater in Florida led to him working on the “Sea Hunt” in California. It was there where he met his wife, Hollie Harres, who starred opposite Yul Brynner on Broadway in “The King and I.” The couple moved to Kansas in 1992. She passed away 12 years ago.

Waeker’s career saw him work on the production side of hits like “Rocky” and “Creature From the Black Lagoon.” He said one of his specialties was sound effects, but he since has lost his hearing. He wrote a book entitled “The Fundamentals of Visual Grammar” and taught an outreach program in a California prison. He said he was a teacher at heart, which is why he thought of all the things he had done in his long career, filming “Pulse of Life” saved more lives than anything else.

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