Old North News

Faculty and staff members at Gates County High School in Gatesville, North Carolina, intervened to save the life of a sophomore who collapsed and went into cardiac arrest in a school hallway.

Jaylen Beamon was walking from class on Feb. 24, when he suddenly fell, according to Fox 8 News.

“He was going from class in the main building to the new gym, and while going down here, the students with him said he just dropped,” engineering and design teacher Donnie Hudson told Fox 8 News. “No indication beforehand, no weird behavior, just out of nowhere, fell.”

School Resource Officer Deputy Robert Jordan analyzed the situation and immediately sprang into action.

“When I saw the student was down, I knew who it was, knew his family, knew his history and immediately knew it was a cardiac arrest situation,” Jordan told Fox 8 News.

Jordan said he’d never performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on a student in his 14 years on the job, but he did so without hesitation, and other teachers assisted.

“We had one group that was doing compressions, we had a group that was cheering,” Jordan told Fox 8 News. “I guess we had about 10 to 15 people just cheering ‘Come on, Jaylen, you can make it, you can make it.'"

After the teachers resuscitated Beamon, he was airlifted to Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters in Norfolk, Virginia. Doctors discovered the cardiac arrest was caused by a large muscle in Beamon’s heart, a hereditary condition, and put in a pacemaker to repair it.

Beamon said he has no memory of the experience.

“I just remember where I was at before it happened,” he told Fox 8 News.

Beamon’s mother, Sakara Miller, said she was grateful for the heroism of the staff members.

“It’s indescribable,” said his mother, Sakara Miller. “I’m very grateful, very grateful, very grateful that they allowed God to use them. He had 15 angels around him.”

The teachers don’t think of themselves as heroes, however.

“It was just part of our job that day,” Hudson said, according to Fox 8 News.