2 Pa. Turnpike employees, Temple nurse help save driver on busy highway

DOWNINGTOWN, Pa. (WPVI) -- A life was hanging in the balance until a few everyday heroes hit the brakes.

A Temple nurse and two Pennsylvania Turnpike workers refused to pass by a driver who stopped breathing. It was a split-second response that turned a roadside crisis into a rescue.

Doug Sarver and John Gallagher saw the driver in distress and quickly realized something wasn't right.

They were ending their shift last December as equipment operators with the Turnpike. Heading west towards Downingtown, the pair pulled over to assist.

"We pulled up, and when I was talking to her, she would just give us a, like, a look and a quick answer, but I thought she was having a stroke," said Gallagher.

The pair immediately called dispatch.

"And, I just held her head, or the back of her neck, straight up to keep the airways going," he said. "When Cindy got there, that's when (the driver) collapsed in my arms."

"And then I reached in to check for a pulse, and I didn't feel one," said Cindy Zimmerman.

Zimmerman is a nurse at Temple's Chestnut Hill Hospital, who happened to be driving by.

"She was breathing, but she was what we call agonal breathing, so she was trying to breathe, but there was no... she wasn't ventilating anything."

As they began CPR, medics arrived on scene and whisked the driver to the hospital.

It's not clear what the medical emergency was, but they learned the driver survived.

"That made my Christmas," the Turnpike employees said.

"No heroes, just at the right place, at the right time."