DBU student's quick thinking helps stranger in Oak Lawn

College student performs emergency CPR on unconscious man

A Dallas Baptist University student potentially saved an unconscious man's life after performing CPR on him this past Tuesday. FOX 4's David Sentendrey has more.

DALLAS - A Dallas Baptist University student's quick thinking may have saved a man's life in Oak Lawn Tuesday night.

A stranger in need of help

What they're saying:

Emma Dilley tells FOX 4's David Sentendrey she and her friends were driving through Oak Lawn in Dallas Tuesday night when they saw a man lying on the street with a crowd of people around him. The man was lying near the intersection of Lemmon Avenue and Douglas Avenue.

She pulled over and saw the man was unconscious and not breathing. "I got on the scene and I checked his pulse, and it was very faint. I actually thought he was dead when I got there, but I re-did the pulse, and it was just a very faint pulse," Dilley said.

"A bystander told me that he had been flagged down by this man saying he was having an asthma attack and just collapsed on the ground — and he had his inhaler next to him, so I figured that was the most logical explanation," she explained.

A first time for everything

Dilley said she's known CPR since she was a high school freshman. Now a freshman at Dallas Baptist University, she said that training was quite useful on Tuesday night.

"I figured I needed to put others before myself, and so I just hopped out and did CPR," she told Sentendrey.

Cell phone video shows Dilley taking action moments after she hopped out of her car. She performed CPR on the man despite never having performed it on a human before.

"I want to go into healthcare, so I figured I’d use it at some point, but definitely didn’t think I’d use it in college," Dilley said. She's a pre-med biology major at DBU who hopes to be a doctor in the NICU one day. 

The man revived during Dilley's second round of chest compressions. First responders arrived within minutes of Dilley performing CPR and took over medical care.

Does Dilley think she saved his life? "I think I did. I tried my best," she told Sentendrey. "But I’m just glad I was there to help and be there for him."

What we don't know:

Dallas Fire & Rescue did not have an update on the man this evening. He was taken to a local hospital after the incident.