An employee at Red Lobster was honored as a hero today after his life-saving actions during in April directly led to a man surviving a heart attack. Aaron Wagner was presented the Dalton Fire Department’s Citizen Life-Saving Award, along with commendations for three Dalton firefighters whose response to the call also led to the patient’s survival. The honors were presented at Tuesday morning’s monthly meeting of the Dalton Public Safety Commission.
The incident happened April 16 at the Red Lobster restaurant on West Bridge Road. When a man collapsed in the restaurant, employee Mr. Wagner immediately stepped in to assess the situation. He found that the victim was not breathing and did not have a pulse. Mr. Wagner immediately began to perform CPR, continuing until firefighters could arrive to take over.
“I feel that I can say beyond the shadow of a doubt, he gave the patient the chance to live and he gave us the chance to do our job by early intervention of CPR,” said Fire Chief Todd Pangle. “This is just a great, great example of the effect that CPR and citizen CPR can have on the survivability of a patient.
“In the last five years, this is just the second time we’ve awarded (the Citizen Life-Saving Award). It’s something we don’t take lightly and it’s a great honor to receive this award.”
Firefighters and EMS were able to stabilize the patient and transport him to the hospital. The patient survived, and it was later determined that he’d suffered what Chief Pangle called “a massive heart attack.”
“The lieutenant who was in charge of the crew that day rode to the hospital with the ambulance crew and he told me something that I’d never heard in 28 years of doing this,” Chief Pangle said. “He told me that the patient hugged his neck and thanked him. It’s just an incredible story.”
The firefighters of Engine 4-A were presented with individual commendations for their role in helping to rescue the patient. Lt. Jeremy Phillips, Engineer Mark Richardson and Firefighter Austin Williams were each honored Tuesday morning.