Man Collapses and Stops Breathing - Off-Duty Officer Saves His Life: 'My Training Just Kicked In'
When I work out, it’s in a gym in my home. That has some real advantages — like commuting time, for example. Or never having to wait for someone else to finish with the treadmill or the double-end speed bag. It’s very convenient.
But it also has some disadvantages. For example, a lack of ready spotters, which means I can’t safely push myself with heavy free weights. I’m getting to the age where I probably can’t safely push myself with heavy free weights anyway, so that’s probably not that big of a deal. But a larger concern is that if something should happen to me while I’m working out, I’m on my own.
I won’t have a hero like off-duty police officer Mike Dahl close at hand, no matter how much of an emergency I may be facing.
Thankfully, that wasn’t the case for the Vermilyea family, who were working out in a group class together Thursday at the Timberwolf Crossfit in St. Paul, Minnesota, when Sara Vermilyea’s father, Pat, suddenly collapsed, according to NBC affiliate KARE-TV in Minneapolis.
“Everything was totally fine,” Sara told KARE, “and then my dad was walking back towards the wall where we were doing wall-sits and he kind of knelt down and he took a knee.”
Luckily for Pat, one of South St. Paul’s finest was engaged in his own personal workout near the back of the class — his usual routine before starting work, he told KARE.
“All of sudden, I saw one of our members on the floor,” Dahl said. “And someone said he isn’t breathing, so I jumped right in — didn’t even think about it.”
It’s a good thing he did. Sara told the outlet that doctors believed her father had experienced sudden cardiac death — which is as dangerous as it sounds. It’s worse than a heart attack; we all know people who have survived heart attacks. In sudden cardiac death, the heart just stops beating. No one is going to live through that unassisted.
Dahl assisted.
“Right place, right time, my training just kind of kicked in,” Dahl said. “Just what we do every day, so I’m very happy I could be in that position for Pat.”
“He sort of came out of nowhere and he was just really quick to take control of the situation,” Sara added.
Dahl said the gym kept an automated external defibrillator on site, which he told someone to get for him as he started administering CPR.
Sara told KARE that her parents had joined the gym about a year earlier, and a couple of years prior to that, her father had undergone a triple bypass after experiencing some “heart issues.”
Dahl’s timing couldn’t have been much better, Sara said.
“I’m getting married in May, and my sister is also getting married next year,” she said.
“He gave us that gift of my dad being there.”
You can watch KARE’s short report here:
Sgt. Dahl is a hero — not just because he saved Pat’s life, or because this wasn’t the first time he was on hand to administer CPR to someone in need.
He’s a hero for just being there, ready to step in when that need appears, even if it means risk to life and limb.
Imagine a world without any Sgt. Dahls in it — a world that would look a lot closer to the one the “defund the police” leftists would force on you, given their druthers.
I can’t speak for you, but that’s not a world I’d want to live in, even though I’m well aware that there are inevitably going to be a few bad apples in that barrel. There are something like two-thirds of a million full-time police officers in this country, and a barrel that large is going to evidence some spoilage. In a fallen world, there’s not much we can do about that.
Even so, I want to know that there are heroes in blue nearby. I hope never to need them, but I thank my Father in Heaven that if I ever do, they’ll be there. It’s one of the few things for which I don’t actually resent paying taxes.
Even if they’re not hanging around my home gym when I’m working out.
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