Off Duty Officer Saves Man Having Heart Attack; Pair Reunited
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GRAND PRAIRIE (CBS11) - A Grand Prairie Police Officer was in the right place at the right time when a US Marine Corps Veteran suffered a heart attack. His actions are credited with keeping the man alive until paramedics arrived.
Last spring, Pam O'Dell was behind the wheel, driving with her friend Tim Truswell in the passenger seat and her teenage daughter in the back. She remembers looking over, and seeing Tim slumped forward.
"I thought he was picking something up off the floor. I asked him, what are you doing? He wouldn't answer. I put my arm under his chest and pulled him back – he was nothing but a rag doll," said O'Dell.
She pulled over at the intersection of SW 3rd and Freetown.
Truswell is 6'7" – a big man – too big for O'Dell to pull out of the car. She began waiving for help and called 911.
"I thought he'd passed. It scared me," she said.
Sergeant Ray Anguiano with the Grand Prairie Police Department happened to be driving by. Anguiano was off-duty, but the department has a take-home vehicle policy, so he was driving his marked police SUV. When the growing crowd of people saw the police logo they flagged him down.
Sgt. Anguiano pulled over, and went to the car.
His dash camera captured the response as it played out: the officer radios for paramedics, then hurries to the passenger side. He hoists Truswell out and to the ground, and begins chest compressions.
"There was nothing, no signs of life. Just the CPR trying to keep him going until the medics could get there, who are more trained to do all that with better equipment," said Sgt. Anguiano.
It took an estimated three to five minutes for paramedics to arrive – a critical period of time for CPR during a heart attack.
"It made all the difference in the world. Your initial first four minutes are most critical for you to have some sort of way to move blood around the system and get oxygen to the body," said Lt. Brandon Jones with the Grand Prairie Fire Department.
Lt. Jones and a team of paramedics were soon on scene, with heart monitors and AEDs in hand.
They found enough of a rhythm to shock Truswell, regaining a heartbeat.
An ambulance delivered him to the hospital, where Truswell spent weeks in recovery.
Six months later, Truswell says his heart is functioning at about 50 percent. He takes medication every day.
He's wanted to thank the police and fire first responders who came to his aide, and finally had the opportunity to do so on Wednesday.
"I thank y'all every day," Truswell said, shaking the hands of the officer and medics.
"The Good Lord said, there's three things in life: you live, you die, and you help. Boy, did you help, and I'm very thankful for that," Truswell said.
Sgt. Anguiano told him, "A lot of things had to happen for it to work out the way it did."
"If I'd not been a police officer, I'd have done the same thing. We're all just here to help each other out. That's it," Sgt. Anguiano said.
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