WINTERSVILLE - Ohio State Highway Patrol Trooper Robert Bodo doesn't consider himself a hero after helping to save the life of a man who went into cardiac arrest on the side of U.S. Route 22. He said he was just putting his training into practice and being in the right place at the right time.
Bodo was on patrol Wednesday on U.S. Route 22, between Reeds Mill and Broadacre, when he saw what he thought was a disabled car off the side of the road. He approached the vehicle and saw a man with the driver's seat pushed back.
Bodo said he knocked on the car window and the man said he had just finished a physical for a job and was having chest pains. The man at first refused an ambulance but Bodo insisted. The trooper walked back to his cruiser to call for medical help. When he returned to the man's vehicle, he saw the man take two short gasps of air and then slump over and become unconscious.
"He wasn't responding to verbal commands and he fell limp on his side," Bodo said.
The trooper ran back to his cruiser to get a portable automated external defibrillator.
Bodo said he dragged the man out of the car to the side of the road. Bodo said he couldn't get a pulse on the man, so he began CPR.
A passerby, Sam C. Cox of Williamstown, W.Va., who was in the area working in the oil and gas industry, saw Bodo assisting the man in distress and turned around, parked on the other side of the highway and ran to offer aid. Cox helped in administering CPR while Bodo was setting up the defibrillator.
OSHP Troopers Greg Mamula and Eric Derrington arrived and helped Bodo, who is a certified CPR instructor for the patrol, in shocking the man with the defibrillator.
Bodo said he continued CPR, 10 minutes in all, until paramedics from Belvedere, Bloomingdale and Unionport fire departments arrived.
The medical crews told Bodo they couldn't get a pulse on the man while in the ambulance and continued lifesaving aid before transporting him to Trinity Medical Center West.
The man was listed in stable condition at the hospital this morning.
"I don't consider myself a hero. It is something any trooper would do. I'm trained in it. I was just in the right spot at the right time," Bodo said.
He added he doesn't believe the outcome would have been the same if he hadn't been on U.S. Route 22 and saw the man's vehicle.
"It is hard to say. He might never have woken up," Bodo said.
Bodo, Mamula, Derrington, patrol Dispatcher Danny Shaffer and Cox are being recommended for a certificate of recognition through the highway patrol.
