Abbeville firemen honored for saving life of man

An Abbeville man is probably alive today because he and his wife live right across the street from the Herbert Myles Fire Station located off Maude Avenue.
Recently, Capt. Pat Ashley was sitting at the table inside the fire station on Maude when he heard a soft knock on the front door. He opened it and a Vietnamese woman began urging him to come and began pulling on his arm. The lady began telling Ashley to “come quick because he was not breathing.”
Ashley, along with firefighter Jeremy Broussard, assistant fire chief Allen Hebert and firefighter Byron Vollmer darted across the street to check on the man.
They arrived and saw he was laying on his front porch. The man did not have a pulse and was not breathing.
They began applying CPR and then applied the defibrillator to his heart in hopes it would jump start his heart.
Acadian Ambulance medics arrived, but the firemen continued to do CPR on the man as the medics worked on him. When they loaded him into the ambulance and took him to Abbeville General Hospital, Broussard was in the ambulance continuing CPR.
The man lived and was back home rocking on his porch three days later. He suffered no effects from his heart attack.
Friday morning at the main fire station in Abbeville, the four firemen who worked on the man were honored by Acadian Ambulance.
Bill Gerard of Acadian Ambulance honored the four firemen by giving them a certificate of appreciation for saving the life of the Abbeville man.
Gerard said only 20 percent of the people who have heart attacks walk away from it with no side effects. He said by having the firemen to rush the man and begin working on him minutes after his heart attack saved his life.
Abbeville Fire Chief Jude Mire said he was proud of their actions.