A father is crediting The Office with helping save his four-year-old daughter's life. Matt Uber was playing tag with his daughter when she suddenly collapsed on the floor.

"She was just balled up against the corner. My natural assumption was that she had tripped and fallen and hit her head," Uber told NBC's TODAY. "When I picked her up off the ground, she was just limp. Her eyes were kind of rolled back."

Uber never learned how to perform CPR, but he did watch the iconic episode of The Office in which the staff of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company had a CPR training session, which devolved into an office-wide rendition of the Bee Gees' hit, Stayin' Alive.

"When I was trying to think about what do I know about CPR, (my mind literally went) to that episode of The Office, where they are doing CPR training and doing the compressions to the beat of Stayin' Alive," Uber said. "It's just what kicks in, what's in your head, and that's fortunate."

While Uber tried to resuscitate his daughter, his wife called 911, and the operator helped keep Uber calm as he attempted CRP.

"I remembered to lift her neck and make sure that she wasn't choking or having a seizure," Uber explained. "I was panicked, and it was chaotic. In the meantime, the wonderful 911 operator got on and talked me through the process."

When paramedics arrived, they used a defibrillator to jump-start the girl's heart before she was rushed to the hospital. Doctors diagnosed the girl with cardio ventricular non-compaction, a muscular condition where the ventricles in the heart don't develop properly but said they did not believe that was the cause of her sudden heart attack.

After conducting more tests, doctors determined the girl had calmodulinopathy, a rare and life-threatening condition that causes children to have an irregular heartbeat.

After the diagnosis, doctors put an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) in the girl's abdomen, which will jump-start her heart if it stops again.

"She's the youngest ICD placement at Riley's Children Hospital," Uber's wife Erin said. "While we are hopeful of course that she is safe and protected forever, we also have a mission or a commitment, both, (to learn) rudimentary CPR — YouTube it — or to go through a formal training because quite honestly, there may be a time that our baby will need it."

The young girl is recovering from the surgery and is getting back to her normal life.

"She is feeling normal, acting normal, happy, causing trouble like every 4-year-old should," Uber said.

Bob Delmont

About Bob Delmont