NEIGHBORS : Life Savers : Fast action by 2 men at a regents meeting saves the life of a Cal Lutheran University minister.

Cal Lutheran University Pastor Mark Knutson celebrated his 49th birthday last week. Boy, did he celebrate it--because it almost never arrived.

Knutson suffered a heart attack during a board of regents meeting May 5. If it hadn’t been for the quick CPR work of student body President Chris Castilian and Daniel Watrous of the alumni association, the arrival of the paramedics 10 minutes later might have been in vain.

“I went to get a cup of coffee. I came back, and I was going to say to a friend, ‘I think I’m going to have a heart attack.’ It was totally facetious, all in jest. I guess it was my last thought.”

That’s when Castilian and Watrous went into action.

“It sounded like he was snoring, at first,” said the 21-year-old Castilian. “Then it sounded like he was choking. I came over from across the room. He was breathing when I got there. I tried to get a pulse from his wrist, but I couldn’t. I put my head on his chest, but by that time, he had stopped breathing. I remember someone asking if anyone new CPR. Then I remember starting it.”

Castilian has never been certified in CPR. What he knows came from brochures and from swimming lessons he took when he was 6 years old. “It was interesting, but I don’t want to go through it again,” he said.

But there’s no guarantee of that. This wasn’t the first time Castilian helped in a rescue.

“I pulled someone out of a car accident last October in San Diego,” he said. “He was driving, and he was really drunk. He had gone through the windshield and come back and landed in the passenger seat. Me and this truck driver pried the door open. He was cut up really badly.”

Because of the heart attack incident, the University will be offering CPR classes next fall.

Thanks to the connections of Moorpark’s Lynn Crockatt, a captain in the Los Angeles Fire Department, the July 3 fireworks show at Moorpark High School will be performed by Pyrospectaculars.

That’s the same group that did shows for the Chinese New Year Celebration in Hong Kong, the 50th anniversary party of the San Francisco Bay Bridge and the Rolling Stones tour.

But the Moorpark show will have no hidden agenda, unlike the Stones’ fireworks display. “The purpose of the outside aerial show,” said spokeswoman Jean Starr, “was to take the audience’s eyes off the Stones so they could sneak away.”

If the Moorpark show doesn’t satisfy your need for explosives, get some quick rest and make your way over to the Ventura Pier for the 5 a.m. show. This will be the second year of “Dawn’s Early Light.”

“We used to have them at night, but we began to have problems,” said Carol Green, assistant to the city manager. “People would come down and sit on the beach in the sun all day and drink beer. By the time of the show, they were rowdy. They had their own illegal fireworks and were blowing trash cans in the air.”

The only problems for the 10,000 or so people who showed up last year, was trying to find a restaurant open for breakfast that early in the morning.

Overheard at the Ventura Theatre prior to the Dennis Quaid and the Swamptones concert June 20:

The bartender telling a bouncer, “If there’s a fight tonight, I hope you break it up faster than you did last night.” That’s enough to make anyone feel uneasy. Of course, The Cramps, not Quaid, appeared the night before, and they attract a slightly different crowd.

But Quaid’s concert was not without incident. A man in the second level had to be restrained from tossing a bottle on stage. Apparently, he wasn’t as charmed by Quaid’s looks as were other members of the audience.