ORLANDO, Fla. – An Orlando Fire dispatcher and two fire fighters were handed awards for their quick thinking Tuesday and reunited with a patient whose life they saved.
Station Seven on South Goldwyn Avenue hosted the reunion between the employees and Arquilla Nozil.
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“I feel great knowing that even though I’m in a call center on a phone, I’m still helping save a life,” said dispatcher Cody Markee.
Markee was credited for answering the phone call that helped save Nozil back in July. That’s when Nozil woke up for work one morning but the second she stepped out of bed, she collapsed.
“I just fell. That was it, I didn’t start getting dressed, didn’t look at him or anything, I just fell,” she said.
Her fiancé called 911, and Markee answered. He had only been on the job a few months at the time.
“Intense. I had just finished my phone training and this was a rather large one,” he said.
For nearly eight minutes, he walked Nozil’s fiancé through CPR.
“Doing a really hard job, which is teaching someone how to save a life over the phone, and really, the first step in the chain of survival is that recognition and then early CPR,” said Dr. Chris Zuver, Medical Director for the Orlando Fire Department.
Firefighters said the fiancé continued CPR until firefighters could take over and shock her with an AED. She was then taken to Orlando Health, where she found out she had an underlying heart condition that had caused her to go into sudden cardiac arrest.
“I’m just grateful to be able to wake up everyday and participate in life,” she said.
Six months later, Nozil is now able to be with her children and family.
“The moments my kids smile at me, I’m starting to cherish that more,” she said.
Markee just celebrated one year on the job and said Tuesday reassured him why he went into his career.
“Us dispatchers, we don’t normally hear the ending of our stories, and to actually meet my patient and to see how everything went from when I first took the call to helping with CPR over the phone all the way to meeting her today was very special,” he said.
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