He may be just a high school junior, yet Phoenix, Arizona, student Salim Mohammed can already count saving a teacher’s life with CPR on his list of accomplishments. When a Metro Tech High School teacher collapsed and her heart had stopped, her colleagues rushed to find help. They came to the gym and found a group of students with their coach.
One of the girls, Ellen Driscoll, was on lunch break and was taking a walk around campus with a female colleague when the woman Driscoll was with suddenly collapsed. “Right when I realized she was going to pass out, I looked at a student and I said ‘Help! Help!’” Driscoll recounted. When the coach and students arrived to assist, she called 911 and put the operator on speakerphone.
Mohammed, who learned CPR in health class, was prepared for the incident. The woman didn’t have a heartbeat, Mohammed recalled. Urged on by his coach and the 911 operator, Mohammed performed chest compressions for almost five minutes before the woman finally regained consciousness. “She came out gasping for air,” Driscoll said. She was then taken to the hospital.
Mohammed was praised by those who witnessed the incredible scene. “No one asked him,” Driscoll shared. “He just jumped in to help and it was like an angel coming down because I was very afraid. To have someone come in and willing to help was magical, just amazing.”
After attracting major media attention, Mohammed says he doesn’t feel that he did anything out of the ordinary. “It’s just a normal thing,” he said. “Everybody should know how to do it.” He did, however, emphasize the importance of knowing CPR in everyday life—a skill he picked up in health class, though he never expected that he would need to use it.
“I’m just grateful I was there,” he added. “It was nothing. I would do it for anybody.”
