VIDEO: 11-Year-Old Virginian Uses CPR Training to Save Her Father’s Life

A little girl in Virginia Beach, Virginia, bravely took action when her father’s life was hanging in the balance.

Eleven-year-old Vada Carawan had just learned how to perform CPR with her Girl Scout troop when she was called upon to use those skills as her dad suffered a heart attack, WAVY reported on Saturday.

The incident happened on November 23 when her father became unresponsive. Vada was understandably scared at first, but then her training took over.

“And I started tearing up and I was like, ‘What do I do?’ Like, for a minute there? I was in complete shock. And then I was like, ‘Heart attack … heart attack, 911,'” she recalled, noting her dog, Maggie, was also nervous and kept putting her paw on Vada’s father.

The little girl, who stayed on the phone with a dispatcher, went into life-saving mode and began doing chest compressions on her dad to revive him.

According to the Mayo Clinic, a person can experience a heart attack when blood flow to their heart is severely reduced or blocked.

“The blockage is usually due to a buildup of fat, cholesterol and other substances in the heart (coronary) arteries. The fatty, cholesterol-containing deposits are called plaques. The process of plaque buildup is called atherosclerosis,” the site reads.

When paramedics arrived at the scene, Vada continued helping them get her father’s heart beating again. Thanks to their efforts, he is recovering at the hospital.

Following the ordeal, Vada offered words of encouragement to others who might find themselves in similar situations.

“Just put your mind to anything that you would want to do. First, I was like, I don’t know if I can do CPR, but apparently, I can,” she said confidently.

In 2020, a seven-year-old girl named Lillie in Missouri helped save her father’s life when he went to light a cigarette and began having a seizure, Breitbart News reported at the time, noting he had suffered from epilepsy his entire life.

Lillie took immediate action by calling her mother, who called 911 while she was at work. Lillie followed her mother’s instructions to help her dad in his moment of need and opened the door for first responders to come inside their home.

“I’ve never seen it in my career — a child that young on her own, to know what to do in an emergency situation like that,” Lt. Vance Farmer of the Willow Springs Fire Department stated after the incident.