DETROIT – A Detroit 911 operator is being called a hero Monday night after she coached a Detroit woman through CPR that saved her husband's life.
Operators never know what happens after calls end because of a law over the release of medical information, but in this case, the family reached out.
The two women were brought together after an incident on Christmas morning at Tanya Samuels' house.
Samuels and her husband, John Samuels Jr., got home from church and thought they'd take a quick nap.
"I just happened to see him take a breath that's out of the ordinary," Tanya Samuels said.
Her instincts were right, as seconds later she realized her husband couldn't wake up. She called 911 and talked to operator Raquel Mayo.
"I always imagine that being me in the situation," Mayo said. "I imagine it being a family member or someone really close to me."
Mayo told Tanya Samuels to get her husband on the floor and talked her through performing CRP.
"Everything she was telling me, initially thought, 'I don't know if I can do that,'" Tanya Samuels said.
But she did, and the chest compressions kept her husband alive until Detroit firefighters arrived.
John Samuels woke up in the emergency room and had no idea what why he was there. His first instinct was to reach for his wife.
"I remember holding her hand," he said. "I was OK."
Detroit firefighters now respond to medical emergencies, and because of that move, response times in the city have gone down two minutes, putting Detroit's response times within 30 seconds of the national average -- a major improvement.