ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- The awkward look on his neighbor’s face was all it took for Senior
Master Sgt. James Hartzog to leap into life-saving action.
Hartzog was driving home from lunch with his brother when he
noticed the grimace, then the collapse, as his neighbor dropped to the ground
while mowing the lawn. He quickly exited his car to investigate.
“It was a warm day, but he wasn’t sweating,” said Hartzog, the
Emergency Management superintendent in the Headquarters, Air Force Reserve
Command Inspector General’s Office. “I tried talking to him, but he was
unresponsive. I checked his pulse but couldn’t feel anything, but he was still
breathing.”
Hartzog started chest compression and told his brother to alert
the gentleman’s wife and to call 911. While Hartzog did the compression, he talked
to the 911 operator until the emergency service vehicles arrived. Hartzog
explained to the medical technicians what he had done as they placed the
gentleman in the ambulance.
A few days later, Hartzog spoke to the neighbor’s wife. The
doctors told her that her husband is alive because of the CPR Hartzog
administered.
Hartzog said he’s no hero. The 22-year Air Force veteran
doesn’t have any specialized medical training, just the CPR everyone in the Air
Force learns.
He was in the right place, at the right time, with the right
training that Saturday afternoon.
“We often don’t think
CPR classes as being that big a deal or that important, but it could be the
thing that saves someone’s life,” he said.