Andrew Mollenbeck, wtop.com
ROCKVILLE, Md. – So there’s good news and bad news.
The bad news is that moments of crisis and danger inevitably come. The good news is that people like the five individuals Montgomery County has honored as “Everyday Heroes” are willing to jump in to save lives.
At a ceremony in Rockville, county leaders shared the heroics of ordinary people who became life savers in pivotal moments.
Duncan Seguin, a junior at Winston Churchill High School, was working a soccer game as a junior referee last September.
Suddenly, the main referee collapsed and stopped breathing.
Seguin, whose father had given him basic CPR training, started in with chest compressions. Two others, Lindsey Young and Chris Trainer — also recipients of the award — helped with CPR.
“It’s kind of a euphoric moment because for me it was my first major traumatic event,” Seguin says.
“It was just one of those things where, ‘Wow, that actually happened.'”
The referee whose life was saved by their actions recently wrote Seguin an email.
“I was overwhelmed about what you did and it’s [sic] consequences for me,” he writes.
“I’m sure that you worked feverishly upon me,” he continues. “My chest was sore to the touch while I was in Montgomery General from your compressions.”
A doctor later told him his chance of surviving the myocardial infarction would have been 15 percent without the three intervening.
Cerebral damage and loss of various brain functions would have been probable.
The other two heroes had similar responses to house fires.
Last June, Oliver Manuel noticed smoke come from a house in the White Oak area.
“Instinctively, I walked toward the house and then tried to knock,” he says, noting he first called 911.
He knocked on the door. No answer.
He yelled. No answer.
Then he took action.
“I just opened the door — smoke everywhere,” he recalls. “I heard a child crying, and I was trying to locate it.”
He found a grandmother and a young child at the home and took both to safety.
Jeffrey Black’s heroics came as he was working at the Extended Stay America Hotel in Gaithersburg.
He heard a fire alarm going off in one of the units, and he went to make sure everything was OK.
“When I looked in the door, the fire was up in the stove range, so then I just ran back, got the fire extinguisher and put it out,” Black says.
He helped the two people evacuate, one of whom was on oxygen and in a wheel chair.
“Each of you honored… summoned up extraordinary courage, and your responses were pivotal in the positive outcomes of life-threatening situations,” County Executive Isiah Leggett told the five individuals.
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