A Chick-fil-A employee from Boynton Beach, Florida, was honored Tuesday for saving a man’s life after he went into cardiac arrest.
Sarah Van Roekel, 18, a senior at Boynton Beach High School, was awarded a $1,000 check by the city’s commissioners for saving the life of Ed Kosiec.
As WPTV reported, Roekel performed CPR on Kosiec after he went into cardiac arrest while she was on duty at the Chick-fil-A restaurant.
“Cassie comes back and she’s like, does anybody know CPR?” Van Roekel explained. “I just ran out. I didn’t say anything, I just took off my hairnet, took off my gloves, and I was like, where is he, where is she? We gotta get going ASAP.”
Van Roekel performed CPR until the fire rescue team arrived. When the squad came on the scene, they were reportedly surprised to find a young person working to save the man’s life.
“Sarah is a key ingredient to the whole story,” said Capt. Jake Brant, adding Kosiec might have died if Sarah had not performed CPR prior to the rescue team’s arrival.
Kosiec met Van Roekel last week in an emotional reunion.
“It happened so fast,” Kosiec said about his emergency situation at the restaurant. “If someone’s not there like Sarah was to help me, it could’ve been a lot different.”
“Ed and Sarah said it was fate that they were both there that day,” reported WPTV, adding that Kosiec’s wife had originally not wanted to eat lunch out, and Van Roekel was working a different shift that day.
Van Roekel, who hopes to go to medical school, received her CPR training at school.
“I was just drilled so well into the protocol, I didn’t even think twice about anything,” she said.
According to the news report, Boynton Beach Chick-fil-A said, as a result of what Van Roekel was able to do, the restaurant plans to have all its employees trained in CPR, and to have an automated external defibrillator in its restaurants.