VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — In early September, Thalia neighborhood residents Kim and Matt McGregor had to call 911.
“I just came downstairs and he said, ‘Call 911, I can barely breathe,’” Kim recalled.
“I’d never had that kind of problem before, so it was terrifying,” she said.
The crew from Fire Station 7 arrived at the house within minutes.
“Things just continued to spiral downward. We worked collaboratively as a team. We had a couple of supervisors show up as well,” said firefighter Jared Hernandez.
Matt was in respiratory arrest from an asthma attack aggravated by a virus.
“He kind of went unconscious; he turned blue,” Hernandez recalled.
When paramedic Elizabeth Cooper got there, Firefighter Hernandez and others were already fighting to save Matt’s life.
“For a while there, we were worried. We were worried you weren’t going to make it. But you didn’t give up — we didn’t give up. You fought; we fought,” Cooper said.
It’s because of the heroic and quick efforts of the crew at Station 7 and 911 dispatchers that Matt McGregor is alive today.
“It was the 911 call you placed at the right time, the 911 dispatchers who gave you prehospital instructions, the firefighters who showed up and immediately started breathing for you. And while we were transporting you to the hospital, we were able to have a supervisor there. We had the chief there. We had everyone working together,” Cooper said.
Matt’s wife, Kim, wrote about the quick, caring attention they received that traumatic morning. She was touched by the fact that the crew visited Matt in the hospital to check on him.
“Being able to come back to the hospital and see you, and see you talking — it was huge,” Cooper said.
“You change lives. You change the trajectory of people’s lives, and that’s the case here. So News 3 would like to give you an ‘Every Day Hero’ award,” I said.
“We do have a community partner, Southern Bank, and Southern Bank would like to give you 300 bucks!” I added.
Station 7 and its crew are truly “Every Day” heroes, and they are positively Hampton Roads.
“I’m proud of the whole crew. It’s not just me. And to see an outcome like this is phenomenal,” Hernandez said.
