Co-worker helps to save a fellow employee's life

MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- When Debi Coffman went to work at American General Insurance on Sept. 28, 2007, she never realized that the life of a fellow co-worker would rest in her hands. Claude Marlowe suddenly dropped to the ground that morning and Coffman realized this was more than just a diabetic episode. Marlowe had no pulse.

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Marlowe had reached out to shake a colleague's hand ... and that's the last thing he remembers. He had a heart attack at that exact moment, and now only knows what people who were there tell him.

"When I did that, I fell out of the chair," Marlowe said. "When I hit the ground, I was dead."

Everyone in the office rushed to Marlowe's side. Knowing he was a diabetic, they were looking for ways to get his blood sugar up, thinking he had just passed out. But cashier Coffman looked at Marlowe and knew it was much more serious. "I knew that he was dead," Coffman said. "I knew he was."

Coffman and another co-worker, Larry Garrett, began performing CPR on Marlowe. "[Garrett] couldn't get any pulse," Coffman said, "and he hit him in the chest and started compressions." Coffman and Garrett are not sure how long they worked on Marlowe before they revived him. "We did that until he got a pulse," she said, "and I sat back and stopped for a second."

Her rest would not last long, though. Marlowe's pulse faded, and then stopped again. Coffman would revive him three times before emergency crews arrived on the scene. "I told him, 'I will not let you go,'" Coffman said.

Marlowe says he had five heart attacks that day, and was brain dead for at least two hours. He knows what the result would have been if his co-workers had not known what to do. "The outcome would have been I'd be dead," Marlowe said. "It's very simple."

Coffman will be honored as this week's "Incredible Hero" at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Coffman says she isn't a hero, but she is proud she knew what to do. Proud and glad that she doesn't have to think about what would have happened if she hadn't put her training to use.

The "Incredible Heroes" are extended an invite to attend the Nationwide Series race as guests of CJM Racing and the America's Incredible Pizza Co. Each hero receives a plaque in recognition of their heroism and they spend a VIP day at the race track.