Then, in October of 2001, Jack got a cold that turned into pneumonia. The infection attacked his heart. When he went to a doctor, blood clots were discovered in his heart and he was told his heart was only operating at 10 percent of its normal output. "The doctor was amazed I wasn't dead," he says.

Summers was confined to a lengthy hospital stay. Before he got sick, he weighed in at 215 lbs, but his illness ravaged his body and he lost 64 lbs, dropping to 151. "I was so weak I could barely move."

Fortunately, the Oklahoma Foundation for Cardiovascular Research was one of the groups involved in clinical trials for the LifeVest wearable defibrillator, and Dr. Mark Harvey decided Summers was a good candidate for the trial.

After 30 long days in the hospital, on Christmas Eve, Summers was fitted for a LifeVest and sent home. "It was the best Christmas present of my life," says Summers.

A week later on New Years Eve, Summers, enjoying his new-found freedom, overdid it by going shopping, tanning, and then going to a hockey game. Summers noticed that his heart readings were fluctuating on the monitor, but he didn't think anything was seriously wrong.

He was wrong. In the second period of the game, the monitor on his LifeVest detected a life-threatening arrhythmia and delivered a shock to correct the problem.

Friends took Summers to the emergency room. His vital signs were all normal; his heart rate was 88; and doctors sent him home.

The next day, a LIFECOR representative brought Summers a new vest and showed him the monitor reading from the night before. It indicated that before the shock was administered, he was about to go into cardiac arrest. The shock had saved his life.

"That's when I got teary-eyed," he said. The device he had never expected to need had saved him.

Although he now has an implantable device, Summers can't say enough about the LifeVest. After all that time in a hospital bed, he could go putting, take walks, and go out to eat. "I was pretty sick of hospital food," he says.

Today, Summers has started working out again, is engaged to be married and is enjoying his life -- a life that the LifeVest saved.