Illini soccer's Katelynn Buescher was heading to her senior exit meeting last Thursday, but left her apartment 30 minutes early to stop at the Irwin Academic building. She wanted to print out some papers for an upcoming final exam before she met with Dr. Brian Russell.
Buescher left her apartment and turned down Armory street from First street before seeing a police car and two men on the ground who appeared to be unconscious. Buescher saw just one police officer on the scene and he was giving CPR to one of the men, but the other was unattended.
So, Buescher sprang into action.
"There were two men that needed help and only one police officer," Buescher said. "So I jumped out, I said I knew CPR. And then I went, and a nurse came up behind me, so we kind of tag teamed it. And we were doing CPR switching off counting out loud."
Since she was 14 years old, Buescher has always been CPR certified. She lifeguarded for several years and then in high school, it was a requirement to get certified in her P.E. class. While it had been a couple years since her certification was renewed, Buescher worked at a daycare over the summer and was re-certified.
But Buescher had never given CPR in a real-life scenario or experienced something remotely close to this. When she first got on the scene, it was unclear what had caused the two men to be injured.
Through talking to the officer and getting more details later on, Buescher learned that the two men were part of a crew working on an apartment roof. They were fixing the gutters when their metal ladder fell back into an electric power line, electrocuting two of the men.
Buescher had noticed two other men from the crew she believes may have been related to the injured men. There was also a younger boy, around 14 or 16 years old according to Buescher who was stuck on the roof.
"I literally never thought I would ever do this. It's crazy every time I tell it," Buescher said. "So we started doing CPR and the brothers were talking and trying to wake him up, but he was clearly unconscious, and we're trying to do CPR. And I can't imagine how they were feeling, their brother or crew member's unconscious and his eyes aren't open."
After several minutes an ambulance finally showed up, but there was only one. The man the police officer was giving CPR to was taken care of first. Buescher and the nurse kept working on the second man.
"I'm like, 'Oh my gosh, I've been going for maybe eight minutes. I'm like, where's an ambulance, I started to get nervous,'" Buescher said. "And then probably three or four minutes later, another ambulance pulls up. And they come out to us and they start setting up a backboard and what looks like a defibrillator and an automatic CPR machine. So after they set all of it up and they put the pads on him while we're doing CPR and they're like all right, hands up. They get a reading and then they used the defibrillator which was probably one of the hardest parts for me to see. Seeing a man get shocked, I wanted to throw up, it was horrifying. My heart broke."
Buescher wasn't medically needed anymore, but she still wanted to help in any way she could. The other two men were still on the scene and the young boy hadn't been removed from the roof yet.
The crew was talking to the police officer in English, but Buescher noticed it was a little broken and thought their primary language was Spanish. Buescher, who is a speech pathology major, has been working on a Spanish minor and is fluent in the language as she's been learning it since seventh grade.
"I went down to the police officer and I said 'Hi, I just helped with CPR over there I kind of understand what's going on and I speak Spanish,'" Buescher said. "I felt like if I could help them speak Spanish it would be a little bit easier on them and the situation. So I was translating their statements and communicating to the boy on the roof that another fire truck with a ladder was coming to get him down and things getting taken care of on the ground and it's going to be okay, and helping them you know, provide their statements. The police officers needed to get their IDs and their addresses and stuff. So I was just helping with all of that."
Once the situation had been settled, she headed to her meeting and just broke down. She walked into Dr. Russell's office with tears streaming down her face while he gave her a hug. She said it was everything she needed at the moment.
After the adrenaline had worn off, Buescher began to process what she had been a part of and what she had witnessed. She remembers laying down in her apartment later that day and felt like there was a 20-pound weight on her chest, but her limbs felt numb.
The next day, the fire chief called Buescher and let her know the men were alive and her CPR services had helped save a life. Earlier this week, Buescher was contacted again and learned both the men were making progress.
Friday morning Buescher was honored by the Urbana Fire Department for her services. While the shock still hasn't worn off for Buescher, she's just grateful to have been in the right place at the right time.
"I'd say feeling wise it was just adrenaline, and how can I help? I wasn't feeling any nerves, or what ifs, it was more of, okay, what needs to happen? What do I need to do? What's going on? I think that I just kind of kicked into this mode of, there is no time for second thoughts, and I have to trust my instincts and the trainings that I'm provided, and do whatever I can," Buescher said.
