LINCOLN, Neb. — A 68-year-old Lincoln man embraced the strangers who revived him after he suffered a sudden cardiac arrest at a city park earlier this month, calling them “my angels” during an emotional hospital reunion on Tuesday.
According to Lincoln Fire & Rescue officials, Robert Turner collapsed on the jogging path at Holmes Lake Park on the morning of March 10. Witnesses said an off-duty intensive-care nurse, Emily Johnson, immediately began chest compressions while University of Nebraska–Lincoln sophomore Jacob Perez sprinted to the clubhouse to retrieve an automated external defibrillator (AED). Paramedics arrived within five minutes and restored a heartbeat after two shocks.
“The early CPR made all the difference,” Battalion Chief Mark Ellis told reporters. “By the time crews loaded Mr. Turner into the ambulance he had a pulse and was breathing on his own.”
Turner spent eight days in the cardiac unit at CHI Health St. Elizabeth, where he met Johnson, Perez and the rescue team for the first time since the incident. “You gave me a second chance,” he said, clutching handwritten thank-you notes. “My grandchildren will have memories with their grandpa because of you.”
Johnson downplayed her role. “Anyone with basic CPR training could have done what I did,” she said. “The real hero is the AED that was actually working.”
Data from the American Heart Association show immediate bystander CPR can double or triple the chances of surviving out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. City officials said only 54 percent of Lincoln residents are currently certified. “That has to change,” Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird said in a statement announcing a new partnership with local gyms to offer free monthly classes.
Lincoln Parks & Recreation is also reviewing whether additional AED units should be installed at popular trailheads ahead of the summer running season. “If we can shave even one minute off the response time, we’ll do it,” director Maggie Stohlmann said.
For Turner, the policy discussion is personal. “I’m living proof the chain of survival works when every link is strong,” he told reporters. He plans to attend the city’s first free training session next month — this time as a speaker, not a patient.
Public-health analysts say the incident underscores a national trend: roughly 70 percent of cardiac arrests occur in homes or public places where immediate medical help is not present. “Wider AED deployment and mandatory CPR instruction in high schools are low-cost interventions with high payoff,” said Dr. Kavita Patel, a former White House health adviser. Nebraska lawmakers are considering such a requirement in a bill scheduled for committee hearings in April.
If the measure advances, Lincoln’s lifesaving reunion could become a marquee example for legislators weighing the human impact of emergency-response investments.