Chloe Sumrall received the Richard Lee Miller Heart Saver Award in January. Photo: Courtesy Taylor Regan.
Freshman exercise science major Chloe Sumrall was eating lunch on March 3, 2013, at Burgers and Blues in Ridgeland when she saved a man’s life. After hearing piercing screams from across the restaurant, Sumrall ran over to find a 7-year-old boy standing over his father, who was lying unconscious on the floor. She performed CPR on the stranger for 45 minutes before paramedics arrived.
“They always tell you you’ll never have to use it (CPR), but if you do, you’ll be glad you know it,” Sumrall said.
A senior in high school at the time, she had been CPR-certified since the summer of 2012.
Sumrall said that while performing CPR on the man, there was a doctor in the restaurant who kept telling her the man was dead.
“As a first responder, when a man of higher authority like a doctor tells you that you can stop, then you stop,” she said. “Part of me, however, could feel he was still fighting. So I turned to the doctor and said ‘no.’”
Two hours after the paramedics transferred him to St. Dominic Hospital in Jackson, Sumrall and her family went to check on the man’s status. In addition to learning that he was alive and okay, she found out that he had undergone sudden cardiac death. He was among the 2 percent of people who survive this type of ordeal.
“Seeing that little boy watching his dad lying on the ground broke my heart,” Sumrall said. “I helped them for no other reason than to see that family stay together.”
The American Heart Association in Jackson awarded Sumrall the Richard Lee Miller Heart Saver Award on Jan. 31, 2014. This award is given to people in the community who save a person’s life by performing CPR.
Sumrall said she and her family remain close friends with the man whose life she saved and his family.
“When people remember this story, I don’t want it to be my name, or some detail,” she said. “I want them to understand the importance of getting CPR certified.”
She said that although the incident has had a massive impact on her life, she wants to move forward.
“This shows that I have the strength to step up and do whatever I want to do,” Sumrall said. “This does not determine my future, though it is definitely something that has shaped me.”
— Rebekah Fields
refields@go.olemiss.edu
