On Aug. 30, Jacqi Miller, an alarm operator for Northbrook’s Regional Emergency Dispatch Center, took a call for help from Christian Flores.
Christian’s mother, Amy, was suffering a heart attack inside their Wheeling home.
“Her son called and said she was verbally unresponsible, and not breathing quite right,” Miller explained.
All three of Wheeling’s ambulances were tied up with calls, so Miller had to call the next closest crew in Long Grove.
Feeling out of the loop? We'll catch you up on the Chicago news you need to know. Sign up for the weekly Chicago Catch-Up newsletter here.
“Long Grove EMS 55 was the closest at that point, they were still pretty far out,” she said.
So for the next eight minutes, Miller coached Christian through CPR. Their teamwork plays out on the 911 call.
“Doing CPR for that amount of time is tasking. You have to push down on the chest twice per second, 2 inches deep until help arrives,” she said. “He was very calm. I was really surprised, because I could not imagine doing CPR on my own mother.”
Local
Amy was in a drug-induced coma for three days but has no longterm damage.
“Jacqi did a great job walking him through it, and making sure he did what he had to do so that I could survive,” Flores said.
Miller and Amy’s son were honored at the Wheeling village board meeting this week, and the two women were able to meet for the very first time.
“When people say there are no words, there are none. There are no words to thank Jacqi or the paramedics and there are definitely no words to thank my son, for everything he’s done,” Flores said.
“It’s not every day we get to know the outcome, and to see her and meet her, that she’s made a full recovery, is absolutely amazing.” Miller said.
