Shayne Davis, a Syncrude heavy equipment operator, was in an Edmonton theatre watching a superhero movie when a distress call in the dark caused him to spring into action.
“I heard a lady scream ‘Is there a doctor in here?’ and I got up to look and she started waving at me, so I ran up and another lady said, ‘My husband, he’s not breathing,’” recalls Shayne. “I checked him and he had no pulse.”
Without hesitation, Shayne pulled the man to the floor and began administering CPR, skills he had learned just three weeks earlier by taking part in Suncor’s first aid training. Little did he know his training would soon be put to the ultimate test.
“I did chest compressions for twenty minutes. It took paramedics that long to reach the theatre and when they finally relieved me, I think I collapsed,” Shayne said. “I was completely exhausted. I just laid there. And when I was able to catch my breath, that’s when I started praying."
Thankfully, the man did survive. Shayne’s quick thinking and decisive action played a crucial role.
“They told him in the hospital when he woke up that the only reason he was alive was because someone was able to jump in almost instantly,” added Shayne.
Honoured for heroism
In May, Shayne received a prestigious St. John Ambulance Life-saving Award from the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta. The award is given to individuals who use first aid knowledge to save or sustain a life. Ordinary people who, in extraordinary moments, step forward to help others.
For Shayne, receiving the award and hearing his citation was “surreal,” but the bigger gift is a continued friendship with the man he saved. The man and his family threw a thank you party for his birthday and presented Shayne with a special gift.
“He made me my own clock,” says Shayne. “As a symbol of the extra time that I gave him.”
Shayne was gifted a clock by the man, thanking him for the ‘extra time’.