Charlottesville, Virginia Fire Chief Charles Werner was on vacation with his wife. It wasn't the vacation he planned. Instead of down time he ended up performing a life-save on Sunday, April 9, while dining in a Henrico County Olive Garden Restaurant on West Broad Street.
A female witness who did not want to be identified described the scene. "I watched helplessly as a man sitting at one of the nearby tables became incoherent, lost conciousness and stopped breathing. At the very next table, a man turned and without hesitation jumped to his aid. He seemed to know what he was doing and he stayed calm the entire time."
"He [the man assisting] first asked one of the other men that was with the group to help him get him gently on the floor. He then turned the man on his side at which the man violently began to throw up. The man who I later learned was the Charlottesville Fire Chief, then quickly swept his mouth and cleared it. Shortly thereafter, the man began to breathe again on his own."
"It was around two in the afternoon," Charlottesville Chief Charles Werner said. "I was eating and felt a jolt against my chair. I thought to myself that the people behind me were just being rowdy and I didn't look at first. Then my wife got a concerned look and said she thought something was wrong."
"I turned around then," Werner continued, "and found that the man was non- responsive but still in a sitting up position in the chair. I asked for assistance in helping to get him on the floor."
"It looked like he had experienced a heart attack, his eyes were glazed over. I thought about the ABC's and went to work," Werner explained.
The fire chief and several Olive Garden employees worked to keep the family calm while rendering aid.
The patient was in his sixties, Werner said.
Henrico County Medics responded. When they arrived the patient was conscious and breathing on his own. They quickly transported him to a nearby hospital.
The eye witness said she was very grateful that the Chief was where he was at the time. "I just couldn't believe what I was seeing," she said. "I was amazed and in shock at the same time."
Chief Charles Werner is a Firehouse.com contributing editor, Firehouse Magazine contributing editor and regualr speaker at Firehouse Expo.
