Months after a phone call she'll never forget, a Peoria woman finally had the chance to meet the emergency dispatcher who she credits with saving her husband's life.
Yvette Gibbons called 911 back on May 21st after her husband suffered a heart attack at their Peoria home.
The call went to City of Phoenix fire dispatcher Laura Thomas, who immediately began instructing Gibbons to pull her husband off the bed and onto a flat surface to start CPR.
"I'm like, in shock for a couple seconds," Gibbons said as she recounted the moments her husband stopped breathing.
After calling 911, Thomas instructed Gibbons on what steps to take in order to help her husband. She told Gibbons to get her husband off the bed and onto a hard, flat surface, before instructing her on how to perform CPR.
"We have a lot of training," Thomas said. "We go through six months of training and everything is about how to focus people and get them to do what we need them to do to help the person."
After performing several compressions, Gibbons' husband began to breath again as first responders were on their way to their home.
"I truly was at a loss of what to do," Gibbons said. "If I hadn't had instruction and direction, I couldn't have helped him when he needed me most."
Thomas described the call as "routine" and said it's important that anyone who calls 911 listens to the instructions of the dispatcher. She is grateful to have the opportunity to meet Gibbons and her husband, who brought Thomas flowers and gifts.
"It doesn't happen very often that we get to find out the ending of it, so I'm pretty excited," Thomas said.
Gibbons also expressed appreciation for the responding EMTs and for the Peoria Fire Department.
