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Athletic trainers honored in Layton for saving student’s life after collapse

Posted at 9:48 PM, Sep 15, 2016
and last updated 2016-09-15 23:48:26-04

LAYTON, Utah -- Two athletic trainers were honored Thursday night for saving a Northridge High School student's life earlier this year.

Amanda Jennings and Leigh Otis were presented with plaques by the fire chief.

However, if you ask them, they don't think of themselves as heroes.

"I know to a lot of people they think that I'm a hero, but I'm just glad I did my job," Otis said.

Jennings agreed.

"I was ready, I was happy I was able to do what I was supposed to do," she said.

Northridge Senior, Connor Moss, says he can't say "thank you" enough.

"Saving people's lives isn't a normal thing, and they should be honored a lot more than they are," Moss said.

The former Knights football player reflected on the day his life changed forever, April 27, 2016.

"I was lifting with my friend, and we were heading out to the drinking fountain to get a drink," Moss recalled. "While he was drinking I was standing behind him, and he heard my head hit the ground."

When the trainers discovered Moss, he wasn't breathing and didn't have a pulse.

"Leigh started doing CPR compressions, I ran downstairs and got an AED, brought it back up, set it all up, shocked him and we continued CPR from there and he came back," Jennings said.

To this day, doctors still don't know what caused the collapse.

"It could have been just a freak thing that may only happen once in my life and be perfectly healthy the rest of my life, or there is an actual problem and they have no idea what it is," Moss said.

Moss can now only watch his team from the sidelines. He is no longer allowed to play contact sports. However, that's OK with him, as he said he's got a whole new perspective on life.

"Death is kind of a distant thing to a teenager, they don't really think about dying," Moss said.

These trainers say they'll always have a special connection with Moss, and that's a good thing.

"When he came back to school I was just overwhelmed, I didn't quite know what to say to him, at first I was just happy to see him in the hallway," Otis said.

Moss now lives with an internal cardiac defibrillator in his chest, which will automatically go into effect if for some reason he should have another episode or collapse again.