SPANISH FORK, Utah — A pair of Spanish Fork High School juniors are being hailed as heroes after they saved the life of a father of one of their cross-country competitors.
The Nebo School District shared on social media that the incident happened on Saturday at a cross-country meet.
According to the district, PJ Merrill and Traven Elquist were waiting for their heat to begin when they noticed a commotion nearby and saw students from another school waving and shouting.
The pair rushed over to find the father of a student lying on the ground unresponsive.
"So we, we ran over and we just, everyone was just standing around and it was like, what are you guys doing like, why is no one making an effort to help," Traven explained to FOX 13 News.
Traven immediately called 9-1-1 while PJ assessed the situation, noticing the man was not breathing, had no pulse, and was turning blue.
Having taken part in CPR training during a previous school year, PJ immediately began administering the life-saving procedure.
"...my body was just going off of muscle memory from all those, all those days of training and in EMR, you know, practicing on those dummies like it feels like 100 times," PJ remembered about the day. "... we had like two or three months of it of just doing chest compression, chest compressions and going over procedures and how to recognize what's going on and, and how to act off of what's going on and what to do whenever the heart stops."
Students talk below about the experience of saving man's life:
PJ said everyone backed up and gave him space while he started chest compressions.
"1,2,3,4,5 — 30 reps of chest compressions and then I took my hands off," PJ said.
However, the man still wasn't breathing and had no pulse.
PJ said he started chest compressions again and was about to have his athletic trainer take over.
"And just as I got my hands off, the guy coughed, he gasped for air a little bit," PJ said.
After several minutes, the man started breathing again. Traven then continued to guide first responders to the scene via his phone, and the man was taken to the hospital for further treatment.
The man, according to school officials, is now recovering following surgery. The school district attributes the training they received last year for saving the man's life.
But the label of 'hero' doesn't sit right with the pair. "I don't feel like a hero and I feel like if everyone had that knowledge, they would have done the same thing," PJ explained.
The teens hope to reunite with the man that they saved one day, whenever the family is ready. "I've been in contact with him[the man's son] for about, since it happened and I've just been asking for updates and like, yeah, I, I wanna go see him and see how he's doing but I'm not trying to rush them or anything," Traven expressed. "I want them to be ready on their time."
In the meantime PJ and Traven say they hope for more people to get the same training that they used to save a life. "I think that the class should be required," said Traven. PJ added, "Someone yesterday said they were required to take some sort of like basic first aid class in high school. I think that definitely should be,, a required thing again because everyone, you never know what's gonna happen."
