Ethan Thomas faced the ultimate test of his knowledge last summer.
School had been out for about two months when the sophomore-to-be at Mahomet-Seymour found himself in a life-and-death situation.
His father, 37-year-old Travis Thomas, had suffered a heart attack and waslying on the living room floor, between the couch and a chair.
The date was July 29th. It was a Saturday afternoon and the family had been doing yard work.
“Cutting some dead limbs,” Travis Thomas said, not because he remembers the day’s activities, but because he was subsequently told about the events.
“He felt like he had heartburn and took a break,” his wife, Adrian, said.
Travis Thomas returned to work about 45 minutes later, but soon need another break.
He went back inside where his teen-aged son soon heard a “thud.”
“I didn’t think much of it,” Ethan Thomas said. “It doesn’t take much to make a thud.
As he checked on his father, however, he said, “it sounded like he was snoring, but it wasn’t normal snoring.”
“I said something, but he didn’t respond,” Ethan Thomas said. “I yelled for my mom as loud as I could,
“Alone, I didn’t know what to do, but the panic for me went away when she got in the room.”
Adrian Thomas was only a few steps away from the door and when she got inside, “before I said anything, he was calling 9-1-1,” she said.
They both knew what needed to happen next, but Adrian Thomas admitted, “I was trained (in CPR) 10 years ago and thought I’d be able to do it, but I drew a blank.”
Ethan Thomas stepped right in.
“He said, ‘Mom, I got this,’ and I moved out of the way,” she said.
As Ethan Thomas performed CPR, Adrian Thomas had questions.
“I said, ‘Are your hands in the right position?’ “ she related.
Ethan Thomas knew exactly what to do.
He had taken a required health class for freshmen in the spring semester.
One of the topics teacher Lisa Martin covered was CPR.
“All students have to take health,” Martin said. “All students have the option to take it seriously.
“He did.”
Ethan Thomas said he didn’t have any difficulty with the material.
“It was a fun class and she made it easy to learn,” he said. “I felt like I could fly through it.”
On July 29, however, he was no longer in a classroom working on a dummy without feeling pressure.
He was at his Main Street home of nearly 2 years and the subject was his father.
“It was a giant rush of emotion, quick panic and then an Adrenalin rush,” Ethan Thomas said.
The 9-1-1 operator provided a couple of reminders.
“They said to make sure he is flat on his back and tilt his head back,”
Ethan Thomas said. “I started doing it. He took a breath and I kept doing it.”
The time between the phone call for help and the arrival of the first-responder seemed to pass in “slow motion,” Adrian Thomas said, but her son added, “from the time I called, it was probably three to five minutes until they got here.
“As soon as they opened the door, they took over.”
Ethan Thomas’ doubts and concerns weren’t about whether he had done everything correctly.
“He wondered, ‘Did I get to Dad soon enough?’ “ Adrian Thomas said.
When the ambulance arrived, Travis Thomas did not have a pulse. It was restored, but dropped again while in the Emergency Room at Presence Covenant Medical Center.
“What (Ethan) did was key to keeping the oxygen pumping to save his brain,” Adrian Thomas said. “It took several people to save Travis’ life, but Ethan was the key link.”
Travis Thomas — whose father had a quadruple heart bypass at age 45 — is still working to regain his strength, but otherwise is fine.
“Other than one week that is blank, I have all my other memory,” he said.
During his hospital stay, Travis Thomas was sedated for six days, and placed under therapeutic hypothermia, Adrian Thomas said, as doctors were “watching his kidneys, lungs and brain.”
The original diagnosis offered little optimism.
Travis Thomas had two full occlusions with 100 percent blockage of two different veins off of one artery.
Adrian Thomas was told her husband had “a five percent chance to survive.”
He is appreciative of beating the odds and of his second chance.
“I’m more thoughtful and thankful,” said Travis Thomas, who is the director of distribution for Bell Helmets, in Rantoul. “I take less for granted. It definitely made me focus more on family.
“At 37, you don’t think that might be your last day.”
Adrian Thomas said the family is forever grateful for the Cornbelt personnel as well as their church family who “gave us a lot of support and a lot of prayer.”
Their gratitude starts with their teen-aged son, who doesn’t use the word “hero” when describing his actions.
“He is extremely brave,” Travis Thomas said. “I don’t know that I could do it.
“It shows his ability to perform under pressure.”
Ethan Thomas told his parents as a 4-year-old he wanted to be a doctor.
His interest currently is in the area of radiology and anesthesia.
He explained his reluctance to accept the hero’s mantle.
“To me, it’s not that big of a deal,” Ethan Thomas said. “It’s something you should do.
“It’s my Dad. I have to save him.”
He added that he thought Martin’s teachings “would be useful, but never that useful.”
When not performing CPR, Ethan Thomas has many typical teen-aged exploits.
He is a member of the M-S football and track and field teams.
When he has free time, he enjoys playing video games on his Xbox.
Adrian Thomas is convinced it’s no coincidence the way the sequence of events played out.
“I definitely believe that God chose him (Ethan) to do that,” she said. “I believe God had him in the right place at the right time.”
Travis Thomas has placed one additional item on his to-do list.
“I’ve been trained in CPR,” he said, but I’ll be looking to get retrained.”
