Robert Hill and his two kids Emma and Jade were driving back from their weekend trip from the amusement park. It was a custom with the Hill family to take a trip the final weekend of the month; only this time Christy, Robert’s wife, hadn’t been feeling too well and skipped the trip. Both the kids were in the backseat of the car and were nodding off as they were tired from their adventures they experienced during the day. Robert smiled as he looked into their eyes.

Calamity Strikes

 

Robert was driving their SUV at a gentle pace of thirty miles per hour. He was a very careful driver and had also worked as a driving instructor for a small company. Currently, he volunteers as a paramedic for the emergency response team at the local fire station. His thoughts were on his wife back at home, and he didn’t notice the speeding white mustang that overtook him and tried to speed through the red light at the signal. He was jolted back to reality by a loud crash of metal and glass. The Mustang had hit a minivan in the center of the crossing and the other vehicle was flipped on its side. The driver of the mustang was already out of his car and was fleeing the accident scene on foot.

 

“Please let there not be any fatalities.”

 

Hill sat frozen for a moment. Then his trained first aid instincts sprang into action. He leapt out of his car and ran over to the upturned minivan. The windscreen had shattered and he could see a man of about fifty year’s old unconscious against the side of the van that was now in contact with the ground. He leaned in through the window opening and tried to pull the man out. A number of thoughts were running through his mind; “Support his neck, there might be a spinal injury, I don’t see blood, there could be an internal hemorrhage.” The guy was hefty and it took some effort but Hill was able to safely pull him out of the van and onto the road. He wasn’t breathing and Hill couldn’t find a pulse either.

 

A Man of Action

 

Hill knew that CPR was the only hope this man had for his life. He was surprised that the driver had gone into cardiac arrest since there appeared to have been no direct impact to his chest. The crash was loud but the impact had not been too harsh. However there was no time to waste. As a part of his training process, Hill had practiced mouth-to-mouth breathing techniques several times, but this was the first occasion he’d be using it in a genuine situation. On his very first attempt at resuscitation, the man’s heart became active and gradually he started breathing evenly.

 

“He saved my Life”

 

James Burgon, the driver of the minivan, remembers to this day what transpired when he’d been driving back in his minivan from the grocery store. “Had it not been for Robert Hill, I would have been a dead man, he saved my life.” Burgon was 53 when he had this accident and was already a heart patient and went into cardiac arrest simply due to the shock of the impact. Hill’s CPR had saved his life in the nick of time. Even more so, the hit and run suspect was caught by police a couple of hours later hiding behind someone’s bushes in their front yard.