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‘I Figured if He Was Going to Die, He Was Going to Die With Me Working on Him’
08/06/2015
Marion, Ark., Operations Coordinator Blake Reed was planning on a leisurely day canoeing down the Current River in southern Missouri Saturday, July 18. Instead, he was faced first thing that morning with a life-or-death situation. Fortunately, unlike the numerous bystanders, Reed had been trained and knew exactly what to do.
Reed was part of a large group preparing to be bussed to the put-in spot on the river. As they were milling around the parking lot, a gentlemen who's probably in his early 60s, Reed said, got out of his vehicle, faltered for a moment, then fell.
Reed went on alert. The man was still conscious, so Reed backed away to give the man's friends room to tend to him. "Then he took a deep breath, his eyes rolled back, and he quit breathing," Reed recalled.
The man was the best friend of Reed's friend's father, all of whom were present. "My buddy said, "He's not breathing!" With six or seven people around him wondering what to do, the friend then said, "He's fixing to die!"
Reed had been an Entergy Arkansas lineman for 20 years and has been an operations coordinator for two. Annually linemen, OCs and others in the field are trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR. Reed's most recent training, by Entergy Arkansas trainer Ron Suhm, was about two months ago.
"You never think you're going to need it, but when you do, that training kicks in," Reed said.
"I did it just like we do on the mannequin." Because the man had been talking just before he went unconscious, Reed knew his airway was clear. He checked for a pulse for a few seconds, "But I wasn't going to waste a lot of time doing that."
"I figured if he was going to die, he was going to die with me working on him."
He positioned the victim on his back with his chin elevated and gave him two breaths, then 15 chest compressions, then two more breaths. "When I gave him those last two breaths, those eyes came open! And he took in a big breath of air."
With the victim stabilized, Reed stepped away and let family and friends, including a nurse who had joined them by then, take over.
Only then did the enormity of what had just happened occur to Reed. "It took me an hour to calm down. But when I was doing all of it, I was as calm as could be. It had to be the training."
Reed's not one to seek recognition for almost certainly saving this man's life, "but I'm glad I was trained and knew what to do," he said.
