Posted on 05/01/2011 2:54:00 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
ST. PETERSBURG — A Tampa woman saved the life of a man who had a heart attack during a triathlon Saturday morning, race officials said.
Teresa McCoy, 37, was just about to finish the bike portion of the Meek and Mighty Triathlon, part of the annual St. Anthony's Triathlon events, when she saw two police officers huddled over a fellow rider along Bayshore Drive.
McCoy recognized the middle-aged man as runner No. 100. The two had chatted briefly before the start of the race. McCoy, a nurse at Tampa General Hospital's cardiac lab, was No. 96.
With other riders speeding by, McCoy steered her bike to where the man was down.
The officers thought the man might be having a seizure, but McCoy checked for a pulse.
"I didn't feel one at all," she said. "He wasn't looking good."
McCoy began CPR, then yelled for someone to find a defibrillator. One of the officers had one in his trunk.
"As soon as we shocked him, he came to," McCoy said.
As paramedics arrived and loaded the man into an ambulance, McCoy got back on her bike and finished the race.
She learned later that the man survived......
"I'm so glad he's alive," McCoy said Saturday night. "I know that God put me where I was supposed to be today. It's like I was his angel today."
(Excerpt) Read more at tampabay.com ...
Feel good story of the weekend.
Another nurse relaxing and resting from twice her normal routine on her day off.
Praise God! And may God bless her!
Among nurses, “Uncommon valor is a common virtue.”
I hope she gets an honorary first place trophy.
Wins the “Resuscitating Heart Attack Victim” phase of the Quadrathlon.
Aren’t police officers trained to do the same thing? God bless this woman but why didn’t the police do anything?
What a wonderful woman.
Teresa won ......the human race.
May all her days be easy.
Thank you for that. God bless that young woman. I’m sure the cyclist she helped is a grateful man this morning.
Bad ass!!! I hope she has a restful day today & gets to nap.
Another day in the life of a nurse. It’s exceptional because it happened during a race. God bless all nurses!
I’ll probably get flamed for this, but it used to be that doctors were praised for saving lives. Now the only time you read about doctors is when they are being sued for malpractice. Or when they speak out against socialized medicine. It’s cool to hate doctors. Now the new working-class heroes (courtesy of Hollyweird) in our midst are the nurses and the emergency response techs and the firefighters and—the single-parent moms. I was stopped at a traffic light yesterday and here comes this blonde 35-year old wearing a safety vest with a sign attached to it which said: “I’m a single parent mom trying to feed my kids...please help”. She was panhandling the stopped traffic and some of the motorists were nodding at her and smiling and applauding. She was making some money. Begging. The new American woman.
Yep - I’ve run a few triathlons myself: remote press, refrigerator dash, pillow crunch.
Phew, even the thought of that other kind makes me sweat; kudos to an excellent athlete and an excellent human being.
Now THAT is a multitasking woman. Good job, Teresa, and thank you!
Most vops get ‘annual’ training which, if they can’t ditch, most of them sleep thru - have a MI and you better hope a hose humper shows up to save your bacon.
This nurse had better training and knew to do a complete assesement. Good for her!
Bump!
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