CAPE CORAL, Fla. — One Cape Coral Firefighter was at the right place at the right time. Back in June, he was attending a Miami Heat game only to turn into a guardian angel.
“I truly feel that night…like all the stars lined up,” said Daniel Rouah, Cape Coral Firefighter/Engineer.
Rouah outside of work he is major Miami sports fan. When the Miami Heat made the NBA Finals last year, he jumped at the chance to see his favorite team.
“Always wanted to go to Heat Finals game and never went,” said Rouah. “And the wife and I decided to take a trip over for night.”
Rouah and his wife enjoyed the game despite a heat loss and even picked up a few souvenirs for his son and daughter.
“I had bought my son and daughter something else,” said Rouah. “And I knew when I got home one was going to be upset that each didn’t get the same thing.”
And that led Rouah back to the souvenir tent.
“I am in line to buy my son a t-shirt and I heard like a loud bang kind of,” said Rouah. “And I looked to my left and there was a guy laying on the floor.”
That's when Rouah’s firefighter training kicked in.
“I went down and checked for a pulse, which he didn’t have, so initiated CPR,” said Rouah.
Rouah, who briefly had help, performed CPR for what he says felt like 15 to 20 minutes before the City of Miami Fire Department arrived with a defibrillator and were able to fully regain the person’s pulse. Looking back on the event, Rouah thinks about how the stars aligned.
“We talked about it. Should we go to Game 3 or Game 4,” said Rouah. “Did I have to be at that merchandise tent at that time, probably not. But I want to get my kid a shirt. I don’t know just how it all lined up to put me right there to provide care almost instantaneously, I definitely think had a play in the outcome of the patient.”
For his actions the City of Cape Coral, honored Rouah at the City Council Meeting on Wednesday and presented him with a Lifesaving Award.
But for Rouah, he wants his actions to be a real-life example on the importance of knowing CPR And be ready to use it.
“The key to cardiac arrest survival is early CPR and CPR was initiated within about 5 seconds of the arrest,” said Roauh.
In this situation, CPR made all the difference. Cape Coral Fire Department offers CPR classes that you can take for no charge at all in both English and Spanish. The next class dates are:
November 18 - 9am-12pm (Spanish)
November 18 - 1pm-4pm
December 2 - 9am-12pm
You can sign up clicking thelink here.
