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Turn those what-ifs into... Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. Fox News Podcast presents Great Americans with Brian Kilmeade. Hi, everyone. I'm Brian Kilmeade, and this is the Great American Story series. And one of the Great American Stories is about to join us now. He is Arthur Lee, founder, creator, and CEO of LifeVac. It's all he does is save lives by the thousands and continues to put that number up. It's one of these things, the more people get LifeVac, the more saves you get, and soon it'll be as commonplace, I believe, as a fire extinguisher in your house.
But the story of LifeVac is a story in itself. And joining us now is Arthur Lee. Arthur, welcome. Hey, Brian. How are you, buddy? Good, good. Great American Story, Great American series.
You're the perfect person for it. First off, some of your backstory. Arthur, you grew up in Massapequa, New York. Your dad's an engineer. Were you doing some of that line of work prior to LifeVac? Well, you know, we're the generation of, you know, we didn't have a mechanic.
We didn't have a house fixer hanging a picture. You know, he and I pretty much did everything together, whether it was fixing the car or home repairs. My dad was, you know, a really brilliant guy being an engineer, but he's also a hands-on guy. So I really learned from helping him, you know, become a handy, you know, baby boomer. You get out of college, you're ready to go. Where do you start your career? Well, I had worked all through college in air freight business. I drove a truck from starting senior year high school. So I was in that industry and, you know, I had a bad accident and I lost two of my best friends.
And it kind of took the wind out of trying to, I thought about going to law school, but at that time I went to, basically I just wanted to live. So I just went into the freight business and 10 years later I started my own company. And so you moved, this is prior to Amazon, you're moving stuff around the country.
Oh yeah. We were back in the day. We were generally a bulk forwarder. My big accounts were inbound and displays. We built that company up to $22 million and I was fortunate to sell it when I was in my feet.
Wow. So, and you found yourself, why do you think you were successful in the freight business? I think it's the same internal drive that every successful person has. You know, like you wrote about the games to count, we played together. When I started that, my goal was to sell it and retire early, life short.
And it was pure drive. I wanted to be the best and the biggest we could be. And, you know, I started in a closet with four people. And like I said, about 18, 16 years later, we were $22 million, 60 people. And we were a large company and it was just determination.
It just wanted to be the best and the biggest I could be. And how old were you when you realized I could sell the business and retire? I was 46.
Okay. How long do you stay retired? I actually never got there, Brian, because God had a purpose for me. I was, we had sold the company and a three year contract to stay on as we were a service business. And, you know, I actually was the only time in my life where I was kind of at peace. All the responsibility was gone.
I basically had a job. And then I heard of a child that choked to death at the same age as my Jackie. And I originally set out to save her, but I just didn't feel right about I'd be able to save my child and you couldn't save yours. So I went right into trying to change the world.
Arthur Lee, founder of Lightback, telling the story. So first off, you just happen to watch the news, you hear about a child choking to death, the same exact age of your daughter, and you think to yourself, what happens if that happens to me? What would I do? I don't know.
What would you do? So you decide immediately to come up with some type of apparatus, something that would stop kids, adults, any age who are choking from choking to death. Where'd you start? Well, it's a little deeper. I was visiting a buddy in the hospital and he pointed at one of those gurneys and he said the last time I was here, there was a child on that gurney that had choked to death. And, you know, from the accident, all that pain of, you know, watching, you know, my best friend died in my arms. I got that bolt of what would that be like if my daughter and I only say that because I don't think you could do what we've done without a bigger drive. It's too difficult. It's borderline impossible. But I needed that connection to the pain that I felt other parents.
How could I know that they would have that pain of their child dying in their arms? But, you know, the good thing on the side of our new technology is an incredible ability to research. You know, you can really dig in and find anything. I found four studies from Canada in the 70s and I was able to really find the direction, meaning it's a physics problem, right? Something's stuck in a pipe. It's physics. You apply enough force, it'll move.
And it turns out that it's not that great a force. We don't choke to death because it's stuck harder. We choke to death because we cannot generate any force. The body, you just don't have air in your lungs.
That's why you can't cough, you can't speak. And so I just started experimenting with simple methods to pull it out, right? I knew I'd be panicked. And I was in my garage with Jackie.
She was seven at the time. She was my co-engineer. And then you start messing with an idea of a plunger. Like, how do you unstuck a sink? A plunger.
So then, Nixx, you know, you're working with Watt and then you come up with, at what point do you have your first prototype? Well, it didn't have a valve system. I could work it because I knew, you know, I'd made it. But yeah, I wanted something simple. I'd made a couple more complicated things and I chucked them because it would be too difficult to work with in a panic. Plunger's simple. Once I had it and I realized that I had to do this mission, even though it was virtually impossible.
I just worked with my buddy Mike to create a valve system so when you push it down, it doesn't push it in. And I think it was about two years of research and testing and, you know, I had to make it. I never made anything in my life. I had to deal with the FDA.
Didn't do any of that in my life. And yeah, about two years and we had a product that was ready to go save a life. We just had our anniversary yesterday. What year is it now? How many years?
2016 was our first city. 2016 and here we are in 2025 and you're up to what? 4125. 4125?
You're responsible, I think. 4125 lives coming up on 3000 kids and in the chart you're up to 25 lives have been saved because they heard your voice and your message. Yeah, that is awesome. So as you get the word out from the VA on down around the country, you're getting emails from around the country of people saying I got saved, I got saved and here's the story. And now we see a lot of the videos from the ring doorbell cameras so you don't really need a surveillance system where you don't have to be owning a mansion to have cameras around your house anymore.
It's simply safe. So we're seeing a lot of this stuff in real time. How big has the company gotten?
We're on pace to 100 million this year, maybe 200 million but that's deceptive because I give one free to every school but we're on our way. That's 29 countries we've saved lives in. You mentioned the ring cam, the body cam footage, for people to actually see it work. I still get choked up but I get emotional with the save of the little boy for the police officers in California. He's limp, he's gone, guy hits him with the light back, little boy comes to, he's a little groggy, he fist pumps the one officer and he hugs the officer who saved him. And I was blessed to be there and the little boy put the metal on officer who saved him.
It really sums up the mission. That little boy is still here. Those officers didn't have to have a little boy die in their arms. In Texas is the first place that we've had a legislation go through just waiting for the governor's signature to be in every school. Wow.
And in a God-wink, we had a kid die. Well I'll tell you what, I just don't understand why it's not in every home like a fire extinguisher. Everyone just assumes you have a way to put out a fire. I think if I walk in any kitchen, most have one, why wouldn't you have a light back?
Why wouldn't you have one in your car? And being totally practical. Not only are you my friend, do I want you to be successful, but I also want to see more people live. And then you could be a hero too. Because if you're that person during a baby shower, that instead of getting another set of shoes or a rattle, you get a light back and then you get a call two years ago, the child's life saved or an elderly man or woman's life is saved because they were choking, that's a pretty good feeling. So the best is yet to come, Arthur, don't you think?
Absolutely. I mean, every, you know, I got to chill because it's a really long story, but the advent of it being legislated in a Texas school every year, about several kids die in school. Every year since I started, we're up to about 100 kids have died in school. And with this moment of the fact that a state has finally stepped up, in the next hopefully year, we will never have a kid die in school ever again. And it's never happened.
We've never had a year where kids didn't choke to death in school. And so like you said, the best is yet to come. And, you know, there are 3000 families that still have their little kids, you know, and that's, that's everything. And that's reported. So there's probably more.
Of course. You know, the message of the media, you guys, that's really been the key, getting those videos out there. Believe it or not, you know, we've never been covered on any of the networks. But you and Newsmax, so be it.
I'm very grateful. Arthur Lee, a great American story. No one gave him anything.
He earned it all. And saving lives in the meantime. And also everything manufactured in America. And make sure it's LIFAC, not one of the Chinese knockoffs, because that's what they're great at doing. So make sure it's a LIFAC.
L-I-F-V-A-C. And how do we get it, Arthur? The best place to be safe is lifac.net. And you're right, there are 1000s of knockoffs. We fight them every day. And they're very dangerous.
And we need our company country to step up. But we'll keep swinging lifac.net and protect your family. And it's a really simple thing. Last Forever, if you ever use it, we give you a free one.
And I tried to keep the price down as 69 bucks. So remember, it lasts forever, covers adults and kids. But you know, it's 5000 people you choke to death, Brian. So the fire extinguisher analogies is good, but more children are likely to choke to death than anything else. Yep.
So buy that instead, or both. Thanks so much, Arthur. Congratulations. Great American success story, Arthur Lee, founder, CEO, LIFAC. Listen to the show ad free on Fox News podcast plus on Apple podcast, Amazon music with your prime membership or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
