By Austin L. Miller
Ocala Star-Banner, Fla.
OCALA, Fla. — A Marion County Sheriff’s Office deputy and an off-duty nurse helped saved a man’s life on Wednesday.
Deputy Alan W. Lee said in his report that around 6:20 p.m., he was at the intersection of West State Road 40 and Northwest 27th Avenue when he saw a woman giving CPR to a driver at the traffic light.
Lee drove to the location and helped the woman, a registered nurse at Munroe Regional Medical Center, remove the man from the vehicle. Lee and nurse Amy Somwaru worked on Jason Keegen until medical personnel arrived and gave the man an AED or Automated External Defibrillator.
Sheriff’s Office officials said Keegen regained a pulse and was transported to a local hospital.
Deputies said the 42-year-old man suffered a medical episode and believe the immediate first aid treatment given to him by the nurse, Lee and others, saved his life.
Keegen has since been discharged from the hospital and is recovering, according to sheriff’s officials.
Somwaru told the Star-Banner on Thursday that she and her family — husband and two daughters — were on their way home when she saw a man tapping on the glass of a vehicle that was in the lane next to their vehicle. She said she asked the man, who was on the phone, if everything was alright and he told her that he thinks something maybe wrong with the person that’s inside.
The nurse said she got out of her vehicle and was able to go to the passenger’s side and Keegen’s 8-year-old daughter, who was in a booster seat in the back, unlocked the door. She said Keegen did not have a heartbeat. She said she lay the seat down and did chest compression on Keegen until the deputy arrived. Somwaru said she, the deputy and the man who knocked on Keegen’s window, took Keegen from the vehicle and they continued life saving measures on Keegen.
Somwaru said when medical personnel arrived, they shocked Keegen once and he regained a heart beat. Keegen was taken to Ocala Regional Medical Center for further treatment.
“It happened that quickly,” she said.
Somwaru said her daughters, 11 and 13, talked and comforted Keegen’s daughter, who she described as “brave.”
It’s the second time a sheriff’s deputy has saved or assisted with reviving someone in Ocala within a month.
Last month, K-9 Deputy Jeremie Nix was on his way home when he noticed someone honking a car horn trying to get his attention. Nix pulled over and a woman came out with her baby and asked the veteran deputy to save his life.
Nix performed CPR on the infant and while waiting for an ambulance decided to drive to a nearby hospital. Cradling the child in his arm, Nix drove to ORMC where doctors and nurses quickly treated the baby.
The move saved the child’s life, sheriff’s officials said.
©2018 the Ocala Star-Banner (Ocala, Fla.)