Athletic, young, and full of energy is how someone might describe 24-year-old Tyler Johnson.
As an EMT for McMinn County, Johnson is always on the go.
“I work out four to five days a week, I mountain bike, I run, always been active, played a year of football at Carson Newman,” Johnson said.
He and his paramedic partner, Ashley Brian, hit the road each shift armed with training to help save lives.
"We typically start running calls fairly early in our shift,” Johnson said. “We are running anything from helping somebody out of the floor to taking somebody to the nursing home, to cardiac arrest.”
They never expected Johnson's life would be the one that needed saving.
"We'd been running all day, it was a crazy day,” Brian said.
“I started getting short of breath, started walking around the station started getting tunnel vision,” Johnson said.
Johnson went into cardiac arrest.
"He started going blue and completely went out,” Brian said.” And so I grabbed his belt, and threw him on the floor because I knew at that time we were about to start CPR on him.”
The jolt got Johnson breathing again. His team snapped into action, quickly transporting him to the hospital.
“When they put me in the ambulance, my heart rate was in the 200s,” Johnson said. “I remember coming to, and asking what happened and they told me I had gone into cardiac arrest. I was just really speechless and shocked.”
Johnson comes from a family of first responders. When the call went out, his parents were listening.
"If the boys are at work, we typically leave a radio on at the house,” said Tyler Johnson's father Eric.
That call is something the Johnsons never thought they would hear.
“It's a feeling of helplessness,” Eric Johnson said. “You go from being the responder to being the other person on the side of the ball.”
The experience has left all of them with a different outlook on life and the work they do daily.
"The response time we have on a good day is five minutes that five minutes could mean the difference in your life and death,” Brian said. “Time is key.”
Now, they’re advocating for everyone to learn CPR skills.
"You never know what could happen, you could be standing in a store, or at home. Somebody next to you or a family member could start having the same symptoms I had and go down,” Tyler Johnson said.
There are two dates for 15-minute CPR training events.
May 18 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
· West Town Mall
· Farragut Town Hall
· Ijams
· Women's Basketball Hall of Fame
· New Harvest Park
· Hallsdale Powell Community Room
May 21 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
· Pellissippi State at Hardin Valley
· Pellissippi State on Magnolia
· Pellissippi State at Straw Plains