Calling all angels.

Byline: The Register-Guard

It always seems as though the lesser angels of human nature steal most of the media spotlight. That's why it was so refreshing to read reporter Andrea Damewood's account of the day last September when 28-year-old Eugene resident Briana Schooley became an angel of mercy.

The incident, which unfolded like a scene from a movie, transformed Schooley from an unlucky traveler who had missed a flight connection into a genuine hero with an official plaque to prove it.

Rolly Bernard was sprinting down a concourse in Chicago's O'Hare International Airport when he tumbled to the floor in sudden cardiac arrest. Anxious travelers began shouting "Does somebody know CPR?" Schooley, who was waiting to board a flight to Portland, had learned CPR three months earlier while training to become a certified nursing assistant.

With Bernard sprawled lifelessly on the carpet, Schooley shed her backpack and took over CPR efforts from another woman. Schooley shouted for a flight attendant to fetch an automated external defibrillator - a portable device kept in many public buildings that is used to shock a patient in cardiac arrest in an effort to restore a normal heartbeat.

As the crowd around her grew larger, Schooley slapped the paddles on Bernard's chest and gave him a jolt. Nothing happened. She shocked him again. Still nothing. After a third jolt, a weak pulse began to register on the defibrillator monitor.

Schooley tried to think of something that might bring Bernard around. She asked his distraught wife their names, and began calling out, "Rolly, wake up, Toni needs you!"

Rolly woke up. Paramedics came and rushed him to a hospital. Schooley flew home.

At the Jan. 7 Eugene City Council meeting, Schooley was awarded the Eugene Fire & EMS Department Citizen Life Saving Award, a plaque given to those who perform an exemplary act that saves someone's life. But the acknowledgement from the Bernards was even sweeter. They told Eugene Fire Chief Randy Groves in an e-mail that the family regards each day now as "Rolly's bonus days of life."

"I truly believe she was an angel sent to save Rolly," Toni Bernard said of Schooley.

Sadly, most stories of people stricken with sudden cardiac arrest don't have such happy endings, but the American Red Cross is continually trying to increase the pool of people who know what to do when such emergencies arise.

To learn basic first aid, CPR and how to use an automatic external defibrillator, contact the Oregon Pacific chapter of the American Red Cross in Eugene at 344-5244. You never know when someone may need an angel.