When Pennsylvania police officer Steve Panormios pulled up to a red car on the side of a highway, he probably wasn’t expecting to see an unconscious man with no pulse.
But on Saturday afternoon, a police car’s dashcam captured the moment he saved the man’s life.
Police in Ohio Township got a call about an erratic driver, and a few moments later, they spotted a vehicle.
The driver of the vehicle was found with his head back and unresponsive, WTSP reported.
“[I] checked for a pulse, found no pulse, and pulled the infidel out of the car,” said Ohio Township Police Chief Norbert Micklos.
Panormios sprung into action and attempted to revive the unidentified driver.
“I think that’s when your training kicks in,” said Chief Micklos. “Your instinct kicks in to just save people.”
According to WPXI, once the man was revived, paramedics put him on a gurney and rushed him to a hospital.
The man then admitted to snorting a bag of heroin before he passed out.
“There’s an epidemic that’s going on this in this country,” Micklos said. “My officers are not only facing people that are in medical cardiac arrest, but they could also be using heroin.”
Police don’t plan to file charges against the driver. The man called them to thank the cop who saved his life, officials added.
Opioid Deaths Skyrocket
Plastic bags of Fentanyl are displayed on a table at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection area at the International Mail Facility at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Ill., on Nov. 29, 2017. (Joshua Lott/File Photo via Reuters)
In August, President Donald Trump urged the Senate to pass a measure to stop synthetic opioid drugs such as fentanyl from being transported into the United States via the U.S. Postal Service system.
“It is outrageous that Poisonous Synthetic Heroin Fentanyl comes pouring into the U.S. Postal System from China,” he wrote on Aug. 20.
The shipment of fentanyl from China to the U.S. is “almost a form of warfare,” Trump said in August.
Bags of heroin, some laced with fentanyl, are displayed before a press conference regarding a major drug bust, at the office of the New York Attorney General, in New York City, on Sept. 23, 2016. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
“In China, you have some pretty big companies sending that garbage and killing our people,” Trump said at the time.
More than 71,500 Americans have died of a drug overdose in 2017, according to data released the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The majority—or least 68 percent—of those deaths could be attributed to opioids such as fentanyl.
The Drug Enforcement Administration depicts the flow of illicit opioids from China into the United States in a recent report. (DEA)
“[Chinese drug makers] have been using the internet to sell fentanyl and fentanyl analogues to drug traffickers and individual customers in the United States,” said Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in a statement on Oct. 17, 2017.
Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter with 15 years experience who started as a local New York City reporter. Having joined The Epoch Times' news team in 2009, Jack was born and raised near Modesto in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
