ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Janie Morales lives a quiet life with her family in Spring Hill, but she went viral last week for all the right reasons after saving a man’s life who went into cardiac arrest at a Tampa Bay Rays game.
“I was just trying to watch the baseball game,” Morales said.
Her boyfriend, Ken Frey, surprised her with Rays tickets and her very own Randy Arozarena jersey. He was trying to get them tickets for the Randy Land section, but they were sold out.
However, he got the next best thing, seats behind the dugout.
"I see Randy Arozarena, I see Taylor Walls, I see (Wander) Franco,” she said, smiling. “I’m just like a 9-year-old boy, and I’m just in awe. I was so excited.”
The Rays and the Texas Rangers were in the middle of the game when a man sitting in Morales’ row went into cardiac arrest.
A crowd of people surrounded him and Morales said that’s when Frey looked at her and told her they needed her help.
“I get in front of him and he is just blue. Some man is holding him up because he slumped over,” she said. “I said, 'Does he have a pulse' and he said, ‘I don’t know.’”
Morales said she checked for herself, then told the man to lay him on the ground. She then asked a woman standing nearby to hold his head up and count to 30 while she did chest compressions.
“Honestly, you go into fight or flight. That’s exactly what I did.” Morales said.
They did three sets of 30 until the man gasped. She said paramedics arrived and used a defibrillator to get his heart to start.
The EMTs credited Morales for getting the man’s blood flowing using CPR.
Morales is an ultrasound tech and she’s required to be CPR certified. She’s had the certification since 2018, but this was her first time using it.
The game ended with the Rays winning, the man surviving, and Morales becoming the star of the night. She ended up on the jumbotron and was helmed as a hero.
However, she said she’s no hero. Instead, she said she left the arena feeling confident in herself and her career again after a long and stressful week, which was a blessing for her.
"I'm appreciative, and literally everyone who helped me listened to me and stayed as calm as they could until the paramedics got there,” she said. “It was everybody involved. It was not just me."
Morales can’t wait for her next Rays game and hopes it will have all the action focused on the infield.
For information on how to register for CPR classes, visit St. Pete Fire Rescue's website.
