Aug. 15--A Mitchell firefighter who was playing softball helped save a fellow player's life Tuesday evening at the ballpark.
Zach Dalrymple, an emergency medical technician with the Mitchell Fire Division, was playing softball in the men's city league tournament with his team, Guns and Hoses. The team is made up of firefighters and police officers, he said.
"I was in the dugout and a guy came running over from a different team and said he needed a medic," Dalrymple said. "They had a guy going down."
The victim suffered from dehydration and heat exhaustion, Dalrymple said. During the game, it was approximately 85 degrees with no wind. Dalrymple declined to release the man's name.
The tournament was taking place at the west side diamonds at Cadwell Park Sports Complex. When Dalrymple arrived at the adjacent ball diamond, the victim was unresponsive and his pulse was weak.
"He was kind of turning blue in the lips," said Dalrymple, then explaining he conducted a sternal rub, a process to check the responsiveness of a patient.
As he checked the man over, he asked someone from the crowd to call an ambulance. Dalrymple asked another person get extra players from the Guns and Hoses team who also have medical training to assist. A couple other teammates and a registered nurse who works in the local emergency room also assisted him.
"Then he started to come around. We put rags on him to cool him off," Dalrymple said.
The ambulance crew arrived and monitored the man's condition after Dalrymple informed them of the situation.
The victim refused transport to the hospital, Dalrymple said, but the ambulance crew advised him to drink a bunch of water and stay cool.
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