45 minutes. That’s all it took to change the life of a Lakeland Regional High School senior, Savannah Roberts, and save the life of an 82 year old Wanaque man.

Roberts started her day, July 4, 2018, excited to ride with the Wanaque First Aid Squad, a 100 percent volunteer organization that responds to over 800 911-calls in the borough yearly. Roberts was CPR certified, but still in school working towards her EMT certification. Her first shift ever was a short one, just four hours in the afternoon. She met her crew around 12:00 p.m. to do a rig check, which is standard protocol to check for supplies, fuel, and O2 levels before starting a shift.

Two hours later, the volunteers were toned out. The call came across as a lift assist for an 82 year old man. Roberts tells the Lancer Ledger that, “I didn’t know what to feel because it was my first call ever, nor could I truly except what we would really be arriving to.”

Arriving on scene, Roberts and her crew were informed that the patient was in cardiac arrest and CPR was in progress. Being led by her trained and experienced EMT partner, Roberts helped give CPR to this man from his kitchen floor all the way to the ER.  “Giving CPR to a person, versus a training dummy, is completely different,” Roberts recalls. “It’s a weird feelings because you know you’re crushing ribs and seeing their stomach move [with every compression.]”

After doing CPR for approximately 25 minutes, the crew was told by the paramedic, advanced life support personnel and the higher authority on a call, that there was nothing more to be done for the patient, and CPR could be stopped. However, Roberts and her partner had not lost hope, and asked if they could keep going. “For another 20 minutes,” Roberts says, “we continued doing compression on this lifeless man.”

When the ambulance arrived at the hospital, care was transferred to the ER staff, and Roberts and her crew waited to hear of an outcome. Roberts recalls “[My partner] informed me that our patient had a pulse and was fighting to breathe on his own. I couldn’t believe the words I was just told!”

For Roberts, this was a humbling experience. She realized that all her training wasn’t just for her own personal growth and passion, but was for the betterment of her community. “Because we did what we were trained to do, we saved a man’s life,” says Roberts. “Since that day I have promised myself to live my life a little bit more cautiously in the sense of how I treat the ones I love or have encounters with, because you never know what a simple lift assist might bring.”