When this 23 year-old nursing student walked into her local gym in Little Rock, Arkansas earlier this month, she had no idea that she was about to be called upon to use the skills she’s being trained in to save someone’s life.

As soon as Megan Crawley, a first year nursing student, walked through the doors at the North Little Rock Athletic Club,  she was met by frantic screams for help. Moments before, 67 year-old Charles Rainey had collapsed and he was not breathing. By the time Megan reached him, Charles was already turning blue.

“I just kept thinking, ‘please don’t die,'” Megan recounted. “When I felt he had a pulse and his color came back, I was like, ‘thank you, Jesus.'”

Megan teamed up with Ryan Ruff, a fellow student at University of Arkansas at Little Rock Nursing School who works at the front desk of the gym and is also a medic in the National Guard. As Megan performed CPR, Ryan charged an automated external defibrillator since Charles had no pulse.

The two students managed to use dozens of chest compressions and a single defibrillator shock to jolt Charles back to life. Once they had him breathing again, Charles was rushed to Baptist Health Medical Center, where Megan visited him two days later. Charles had just planned to run less than a mile at the gym, but soon after he started, he went into cardiac arrest.

“I was dead when I hit the floor,” Charles said, adding that Megan is a “sweet girl” who saved his life. Megan has refused to take all the credit, saying that she could not have done what she did without “Ryan’s amazing teamwork and skills.” She has also credited both her faith in God and UA Little Rock nursing instructor Joanna Rostad-Hall for giving her the skills she needed to handle this situation.

“She was the one who taught my CPR class,” Megan said. “If it wasn’t for Mrs. Rostad-Hall and God, I don’t know what I would’ve done.”

We applaud both Megan and Ryan for doing what they had to do to save this man’s life! They are going to be amazing nurses someday!