Radio Topia.

From PRX.

From PRX's Radiotopia, this is Radio Diaries.

I'm Joe Richman.

One year ago, on Valentine's Day, Peter Fodera's heart broke.

It stopped working.

Fodera was 72, a big man with a big smile and a big belly.

You wouldn't look at him and think dance teacher, but in that Valentine's Day, he was DJing and

teaching a class. He just started playing this song by Gotan Project when he collapsed to the

ground and the music stopped.

I was in the class that day.

It took a while for all of us to realize what was happening.

Someone did CPR.

Someone else called an ambulance.

The EMTs showed up, but through it all, Peter wasn't moving.

Many of us assumed we had witnessed the death of our favorite teacher. And officially, he did die. But later in the hospital, Peter's heart started beating again.

For the anniversary of his brief death, I asked Peter Fodera to record a conversation with his

daughter, Juliana. She's 39 and has Noonin syndrome, a rare genetic

disorder. While Peter's experience of dying and coming back to life may seem miraculous to some of us,

it doesn't to Juliana. By her count, she's died 21 times. On today's show, Living with Dying.

So on February 14th, Valentine's Day, teaching in the East Village,

during the middle of the class, I just hit the floor. Did you feel weird that morning at all?

...