This man saved a woman’s life with CPR he learned from ‘The Office’

After a long tiring day at work, most of us look forward to coming home and seeing our favorite TV shows. We expect to get nothing more out of this activity but to be entertained and relaxed.

However, one man got something more out of watching his favorite sitcom – something that will help him save a life.

Cross Scott works as a lead shop technician at Jack Furrier Tire & Auto Care on South Sixth Avenue and East Valencia Road.

He was doing a test drive on a customer’s car on January 11 when he saw a white sedan in a dirt pull-off with its hazard lights blinking.

When he pulled in front of the white sedan, he saw that it was a woman who was driving the car. However, he noticed that her vehicle was still rolling, so he quickly stuck a big rock under the front wheel.

That’s when he saw that the woman was unconscious. Scott never brings his phone with him when driving customer’s vehicles to avoid the distractions of taking a call while driving, so he didn’t have any means to call for help.

Car after car drove by when finally, two women pulled over and immediately called 911. Scott then smashed the window with a big rock and he reached in to unlock the driver-side door. He checked for the woman’s pulse and felt that she didn’t have one.

One of the women who helped him reclined the unconscious woman’s seat while Scott crawled on top of her. That’s when an idea popped into Scott’s head – he suddenly remembered an episode from the hit TV show “The Office”.

What he recalled is an episode of “The Office” in which character Michael Scott (played by Steve Carell) sings the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” while performing chest compression on a dummy. In that particular episode, the gang took an in-office CPR course after one of their colleagues suffered from a heart attack.

The whole episode could actually be a tutorial on what not to do, but it at least got one thing right – the song can be used as a meter during CPR as it has the correct tempo for chest compression.

As silly as it may look, Scott sang “Stayin’ Alive” out loud while he was doing the chest compression. After a minute, the woman took a breath and threw up. The two women then helped him roll her onto her side. Despite having no CPR training or experience whatsoever, Scott’s trick worked after all!

Scott says that when the paramedics arrived, about 10 minutes had already passed since he pulled over. One of the paramedics from the Tucson Fire Department told him that if he hadn’t performed CPR on the woman, the situation could have turned out very differently.

The unconscious woman was named Clara, and she was on the phone with her daughter when she suddenly passed out.

One of the two women who pulled over picked up the phone and found that the daughter was still on the line. She heard the whole thing and arrived just in time to see her mother off to the hospital.

Scott finished his shift and immediately went to the hospital to see how Clara was doing. But when he got there, she had already been released.

“All I could think about was picturing her face,” Scott said. “I had to make sure she was OK. That’s the only reason why I went to the hospital.”

The Tucson Fire Department wouldn’t release any additional details about this incident. Courtney Slanaker, executive director of the Red Cross Southern Arizona chapter, says that “if you don’t do CPR, that victim will die. Don’t be afraid to act. Whatever you do will help that victim and hopefully prevent a death.”

She also confirmed that “Stayin’ Alive” is, in fact, the correct rhythm for chest compression, which is 100 beats per minute.

Who would have thought that an episode from a television sitcom would help one man save a life? This story can serve as a reminder to us that learning first aid is truly important – we might be able to use that knowledge in situations like this, just like what Cross Scott did.

Here is the hilarious “Stress Relief” episode from “The Office”.