A 21-year Chagrin Valley dispatcher said she gives all the glory to an unknown woman on the phone for helping bring a pulse back to an unconscious woman.
CHAGRIN FALLS, Ohio — A Chagrin Valley dispatcher is being hailed a hero after helping save a woman’s life over a phone call.
Listening to the 911 phone call that day is chilling.
“911 what is the address of your emergency?” 21-year dispatcher Melinda Pilat can be heard saying in the tape.
“It was normal shift [with] normal calls,” Pilat said in a one-on-one interview with 3News.
A call would soon come in. It’s high intensity. Family members are screaming on the phone.
“Stop yelling, it is not helping anything. You have to go sit down,” an unknown woman can be heard saying to another family member on the call.
“They came into their mother’s apartment to check on her. They hadn’t heard from her in a while and they found her laying on the floor,” Pilat described.
Trying to maintain a calm, controlled call all while coordinating paramedics, Pilat makes the decision that they’re going to administer CPR on the unconscious woman together.
“This information that guys provide to me is going to help me help you guys, ok? Can somebody please page this out? I’ve got a full arrest,” Pilat says in the 911 tape. “Ok, lay her on her back. I’m going to start doing CPR with you, ok? I need you to place one hand directly in the center of her chest. Let’s start pushing. One, two, three, four.”
After one, even two cycles of CPR there is still no pulse.
“Is she changing at all? Any breathing?” Pilat asks.
“No,” the family member on the phone responds.
“Let’s keep going. Let’s keep going. Really push,” Pilat says.
“She stayed very calm,” Pilat told 3News. “[She was] probably the best person that I’ve ever spoke to giving CPR over the phone.”
Police and paramedics arrived minutes later, according to Pilat.
“She was translated to the hospital with a pulse,” Pilat said. “It was the best outcome we could have had.”
Pilat, who has since been awarded the Chagrin Valley dispatch center’s lifesaver pin, now gives all the glory to that unknown family member for saving a life.
“She really is the hero on a call like this,” Pilat said humbly. “If it wasn’t for her physically going through what I was telling her to do, who knows what could have happened.”
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