ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOX) –The St. Louis Fire Department honors some of its heroes  — with a ceremony for firefighters and paramedics who saved lives in the line of duty.

Paramedic Sean Davis helped revive a minister who had collapsed during a sermon.  “We found the preacher in cardiac arrest in church in the middle of a service and we were able to do CPR and resuscitate him,” Davis said.

Paramedic Sean Davis

In a separate emergency,  Paramedic Crew Chief James Thompson helped save a 68-year old woman who appeared already dead.

“She had absolutely no heart activity when we found her,” Thompson said,  “We took her from that to a fibrillation rhythm, which is what they can shock.   And from that we took her into a spontaneous pulse with a blood pressure.”

Driving to a stress debriefing after the death of a child,  Paramedic Supervisor Mark Sweaney was feeling sad when duty called.   A two-year old girl was in cardiac arrest.

Paramedic Supervisor Mark Sweaney

“So I went to that call, and just knowing that we got that child back was such an uplift for me,” Sweaney said.

Crawling on the floor through blinding smoke in a house fire,  Firefighter George Anderson found a teen-aged girl whose life he saved.

“Just found her, just feeling, just crawling through the room and doing a search pattern,” Anderson said,  “She was barely breathing and only had a couple minutes left.”

Firefighter George Anderson

The group, along with others, received honors at the annual Lifesaving Awards Ceremony, held at St. Louis Community College at Forest Park Campus.

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