INDIANAPOLIS -- A Grissom Air Reserve Base command chief saved the life of a woman whose heart stopped at the Indianapolis International Airport.
Chief Master Sgt. Robert Herman, command chief for the 434th Air Refueling Wing, was preparing for a training assembly when he saw a crowd gathering around a middle-aged women who had fallen unconscious.
“The situation changed immediately from a woman who was lying down and exchanging words, to a woman who had become a lifeless body on the floor,” Herman said.
Herman, who has more than 20 years of experience as an active-duty, Air Force Reserve and civilian firefighter/paramedic, used an AED brought to the scene by a police officer to deliver two shocks to the woman.
The second shock returned the woman's pulse, at which point paramedics took over.
A few weeks later, Herman received a call from the woman, named Sue, thanking him for saving her life.
Sue told him she had completed rehab and was returning to work.
“Nothing I did was at all heroic,” he said. “Everyone in the Air Force is required to take self-aid and buddy care. Everyone would have and so often do respond in the same way – this just happens to be my occupation.”
In addition to his Air Reserve duties, Herman works as a fire apparatus engineer for the city of Omaha, Nebraska.
