SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - A little more than a month ago, Marisa Deluca, an SDSU grad student, said she had wrapped up a field trip in Balboa Park with her classmates.
“I was sitting at this table with some friends, and we were discussing our visit to the Mingei Museum,” Deluca said. “We noticed that there was an Uber driver who was in distress.”
That’s when the field trip conversation turned into a moment of action for Deluca.
“He was shaking. There was a woman on the passenger side asking if he was okay. So, I got up and ran around to the driver side of the car which I would say was probably right about here,” Deluca said.
The mom of three said she got into that mindset of how can I help someone in trouble.
Deluca asked a young man to pull out the driver — who she believes was in his early to mid 60s — and lay him in the ground.
“I saw that he wasn’t breathing. His face was turning blue and so I started the Rescue ME CPR! App,” Deluca said.
That’s how Deluca used the app to help the man on that fateful day.
“It asked me if the person was breathing and I said no,” Deluca said.
“That’s when it took me through a series of beeps and a video at the same time how to show the hands which was crucial for me. I was so scared,” She added. “So, I was grateful to have instructions were simple and easy to understand with visuals.”
While a friend called 911 as she worked on a round of chest compressions, Deulca’s professor found a nurse who came by and took over on the pavement. The app helping to do the amazing; the man took a breath.
“As the ambulance arrived, the man started to come to and wake up. And he was disoriented and the nurse, and another nurse who showed, both tried to keep him calm until the ambulance drivers came,” Deluca said. “They put him on a gurney and put him in the back of the ambulance which, after a couple of minutes, I could hear the man speaking to the ambulance driver and like I knew he was alive.”
Greenberg told ABC 10News he and his team recently completed a university-commissioned study about the app and the effectiveness of it. Deluca’s story of using the app to save is what makes their work all worthwhile.
“That is what this is all about,” Greenberg said. “It brings us a lot of joy to know it’s working as well or better than we expected.”
It was quick thinking in a moment that was completely unexpected.
“I’m so grateful for Dr. Greenberg and his team for developing this app and for getting the word out in the way he has. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have known about it and that many might not be alive today,” Deluca said.
“And now, our goal is to get it on 50 million phones. We have 50,000. So we have a long way to go,” Greenberg said.
