By EMS1 Staff
COLLINSVILLE, Okla. — Paula Turner traveled hundreds of miles from her home state of New York to thank Paramedic Jeremy Fern, who saved her life when they both happened to be vacationing in Mexico in May.
News 9 reported that Turner and her husband Dave were on a diving excursion in Mexico when the couple surfaced, and Dave noticed his wife was not breathing.
“When I surfaced, it was the most helpless feeling in the world, because we were in the middle of the bay, and I was thinking, ‘Oh my god, what are we going to do now?’” he said in an interview.
Fern, a Mercy EMS paramedic in Collinsville, Oklahoma, happened to be on a boat next to the couple, and immediately went into rescue mode. He dove into the water and pulled Turner to safety, then began performing CPR on her for the next 30 minutes until she was resuscitated, then used life-saving equipment on the boat to help her regain consciousness.
“It’s just muscle memory at that point, I did what we are trained to do,” Fern said.
For Turner, however, it’s nothing short of miraculous that she was able to make the trip and thank her rescuer.
“All the stars were aligned for me to be a survivor, words can’t describe it,” she said. “I am just so happy I got to come here and thank him in person.”
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