SEATTLE – With everything that life throws at us, we never know when or where we will be put to the test.
For Toriana Davis, 18, one of those tests came last week, at a bus stop in Seattle’s Rainier Valley.
“He was instantly gone, like instantly,” Davis said.
A man, who had just ended a volunteer shift at the Rainier Valley Food Bank suffered a heart attack. Davis was sitting next to him and said he become slumped over on the bench at the bus stop.
“It was really scary, he had worked all day and people noticed he wasn’t his usual self,” said Gloria Hatcher-Mays, the executive director of the food bank.
Without much thought, Davis did chest compressions until the fire department arrived. She said the last time she took a CPR class was in middle school.
“I just snapped into survival mode and immediately called 911 and started CPR,” Davis said.
The man survived and is now recovering in the hospital.
“It made all the difference in terms of him surviving or not surviving,” said Hatcher-Mays.
While 18-year-old Davis is right now working on her GED, she’s experiencing homelessness and just moved into a shelter. She says the tough stuff life threw at her prepared her to save a life.
“I was in foster care before and extended foster care. There was a lot of things going on, a lot of traumatizing moments, but if those moments didn’t happen, I probably wouldn’t have been here to save his life,” Davis said. “In a way, I’m grateful.”