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Roy Tousley collapsed at Galleria Dallas on Oct. 27. In a matter of minutes, his friend had started CPR.

A doctor walking by intervened next and began compressions.

Mall security then arrived and gave him two shocks with an AED, but Tousley was still in danger.

Dallas Fire-Rescue Engine 20 was first on the scene and took over, continuing CPR and using the defibrillator. By the time firefighters got Tousley to Medical City Dallas he was breathing on his own and stable.

“This is an awesome outcome, we’re very happy to see it. We don’t get to see it enough,” said Jay Prigmore the driver, engineer and paramedic for Engine 20.

Tousley and his wife stopped by the fire house on Wednesday to say thank you to rescuers.

“I came to the fire station to give my very best to these gentlemen that saved my life,” said Tousley.

“We need to get defibrillators in every public place that we can,” said Myrna Tousley. “We need everybody to take a CPR course, that’s crucial.”

“When I stuck it in my mouth and started chewing, I could feel it slithering down my throat, and it obviously blocked my airway, and that’s when this episode started,” Nielsen said.

Her husband started performing the Heimlich manoeuvre, and then a Costco employee asked him if he needed assistance. That’s when Debbie Osterman, 47, a manager at Costco, entered into the scene.

“You don’t have a chance to think, your body and mind goes into automatic, you don’t think of your training, you don’t think of anything, you just jump in,” Osterman said. She took over the Heimlich, but Nielsen was starting to lose consciousness. “It was almost like a grey thing was coming down, when I was losing consciousness,” Nielsen said.

“I remember feeling my legs sort of going out from under me.”

Laurel Underhill, 44, a nurse at the Grey Nuns Hospital, noticed the crowd of people around Nielsen.

“I thought, there must be a good food sample there,” she said.

When she realized what was going on, she jumped in to help.

By that time, Nielsen said her heart had stopped. Underhill and another nurse started performing CPR, and after a couple of breaths, Nielsen began breathing on her own again. Paramedics arrived about a minute later.

“The next thing that I remember is waking up as they were frantically wheeling me out of Costco on a stretcher,” Nielsen said.

She said the only lasting effects were some “really, really sore ribs,” but that the doctor told her it was a small price to pay for her life.

Underhill and Nielsen met for the first time at the St. John Ambulance awards ceremony. Nielsen told her, “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

“There’s a bond here that’s never going to go away,” Nielsen said.

Now, every time Nielsen goes to Costco, she and Osterman say hello and hug each other.

Nielsen was the one who nominated Underhill and Osterman, in addition to one other woman who couldn’t attend the event, for the award. She managed to track them down by remembering where they worked.

“I had to find a way to recognize their efforts,” she said. Nielsen described a fourth woman who also helped her. She hasn’t been able to track her down yet.

“She had a little tiny baby in a stroller, and she was the first one to show up,” she said.

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The 35 year-old man was eating lunch at the Red Robin restaurant in the Westfield Connecticut Post mall last Saturday when his heart stopped, said Capt. Chris Zak of the Milford Fire Department. When the customer collapsed, restaurant manager Curtis Kilburn called 911 and the mall security office.

Two bystanders began performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the man, who had no pulse or heartbeat, Zak said. Jeanne DeMello, a nurse, and Mark Kipstein, an off-duty New York City firefighter, started the chest compressions within moments of the man’s collapse.

Security guards Brian Carlson and Michael Todd used the portable defibrillator to deliver one measured shock that returned the man’s heart to a normal rhythm, Zak said.

Mall spokesman Greg Udchitz said Friday that the mall owns at least two of the units, and the security guards and other Westfield personnel are trained in how to use them as well as in basic first aid and CPR. “It is very rare that we see a medical emergency like this, where we get to use our training,” he said.

Milford Fire Department paramedics arrived within four minutes, Zak said, and provided advanced life support services and oxygen. The man, who was not identified, was transported by ambulance to Milford Hospital.

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17-year-old Sarah Suchower was at Bellevue Square with her aunt Friday when a man collapsed outside Nordstrom and the medical scout raced into action.

“Security started coming up and we yelled for an AED (Automated External Defibrillator) and one was brought over. After doing a series of compressions we realized he still didn’t have a pulse so we hooked up the AED and it shocked him once and we continued to do compressions and that was when the EMTs got there,” says Suchower.

The man was hospitalized but is said to be recovering thanks to the 17-year-old Bonney Lake High junior who wants to be a doctor one day.

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An 80-year-old man suffered a suspected heart attack and stopped breathing outside the Cwm Deri Vineyard shop but thanks to Riverside Shopping Centre worker Mike Davies’ first aid training – and a well placed defibrillator – he made it to hospital alive.

Haverfordwest has a defibrillator, located at Wimpey, provided by the Welsh Assembly, in conjunction with Health Commission Wales and the Welsh Ambulance Service in 2006.

Mike, along with other shop workers were trained in the use of the electric shock machines, often vital to restarting someone’s heart, by the Welsh Ambulance Service.

Time is of the essence for heart attack victims.

Early treatment, like that provided by Mike, who was helped by a retired nurse who was nearby, can mean the difference between life and death.

Mike said the retired nurse began CPR in the vital first minutes while he ran for the defibrillator, which gives you step-by-step instructions and logs vital data which can be used by ambulance and hospital staff.

“Hopefully it will be the last time I’ll use it,” said Mike, who went back to work as usual after the incident.

“It was a case of just do it. It was surreal, yes, but it had to be done. It did take a bit of time to sink in. I put the machine on and let the machine do it. The adrenaline was pumping and you do what you can.”

Riverside Shopping Centre manager Roland Keevil praised Mike’s quick thinking.

“We are very proud of him and delighted that he was able to offer his assistance.”

“The last thing I remember, I picked up an apple, and I was looking at it, and I thought, ‘I’m going to faint,’ ” said Angell, 59, whose heart stopped beating for a few minutes on April 25.

Her next memory is waking up in an ambulance, and a paramedic telling her a police officer had saved her life.

Russell, the West Des Moines police officer, was on patrol north of the West Glen Target when someone at the store called 911. Russell was in his second week on solo patrol.

“I was just driving around, and I was probably a quarter-mile away when I got tripped to go there,” Russell, 24, said.

He flipped on the lights and siren, and started going over in his mind how he would use the automatic external defibrillator in his patrol car.

Somebody from the store waved him into the east entrance, and he found Angell on the floor, surrounded by 15 or 20 people.

He knelt next to her and used the defibrillator to monitor her heart rhythm. A nurse was with Angell, and told Russell they hadn’t been able to find a pulse for two minutes. The defibrillator then signalled Russell to administer the shock.

“Right when it said ‘shock advised,’ that’s when the medics ran in,” Russell said.

He pressed the red button, and then did two sets of compressions, pushing on her sternum.

“Like a snap she woke up and said ‘Ow!’ kind of like she was dreaming,” Russell said.

Paramedics put her on a stretcher, and rolled her out to the ambulance.

“It never really hit me until one of the medics looked over and she said, ‘Great job,’ ” Russell said. “I was kind of in the zone, but then it came back to reality.”

He had saved the life of a mom, a friend. Angell, who lives in south Des Moines, is a retired teacher. She taught French at Lincoln High School for 25 years.

“I’m so grateful to him,” she said of Russell.

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Lee says, “When I hit the floor. I just totally blacked out. Don’t know what happened, and they took over from there. They have their defibrillator in the store here. The went through their code blue.”

Manager Tom Pfeifer, and his trained staff first performed the newest recommended heart attack technique called “Heart Saver”.

“Paramedic service, they came here in 5-6 minutes. We had minimal time with you initially until they came.”

In those minutes Lee flat lined, which led to him being shocked by an automated external defibrillator.

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The trio from Middleton Shopping Centre raced to the aid of 75-year-old Vera Roach who had collapsed close to Burton Street after suffering a cardiac arrest.

As well as administering CPR, the quick-thinking threesome of Leigh Garratt, John Hayes and Paul Robinson used a defibrillator kept in the shopping centre while an ambulance raced to the scene.

John Heyes, Paul Robinson & Leigh Garatt the Saviours

Mrs Roach’s daughter Jacqueline, said the men’s actions had saved her mum’s live.

“The doctors told me that if it wasn’t for the actions of the guards my mum wouldn’t have made it. I cannot thank them enough.”

Mrs Roach is expected to arrive home today (Thursday) after spending a fortnight being treated at North Manchester General Hospital.

She collapsed on June 30 close to the lights at the end of Burton Street after leaving her home to head into Middleton town centre for some shopping.

But as she prepared to cross Factory Street she suffered a heart attack and fell to the ground.

A few minutes later, security manager Leigh Garratt from Reliance, who manage Middleton Shopping Centre’s, spotted Mrs Roach on the ground.

“I was just heading out on my lunch when I spotted a crowd gathered around this lady,” he said. “I went over and started performing CPR and asked my colleagues to bring over the defibrillation machine from the shopping centre.”

Leigh’s colleagues, John and Paul, arrived with the machine as the trio continued to attempt to restart Mrs Roach’s heart while they waited for an ambulance to arrive.

Once paramedics arrived, they continued to assistant the medical crews as they prepared to transfer her to hospital.

“There is a golden few minutes when someone’s heart stops,” Leigh added. “I have since found out that Mrs Roach had been there for over 10 minutes before we arrived, but we are trained to do this and were glad to help out.”

As well as working as security guards in Middleton Shopping Centre, Leigh and his colleagues are all trained in basic life support as well as how to use a defibrillation machine.

David McNally, community resuscitation manager for NW ambulance, who trained the guards, said: “If these machines are used within four minutes of someone collapsing the chances of people surviving goes up quite dramatically and this is what happened here.

“It is testament to their skill and the programme we do that someone’s life has been saved.”

Since the incident, Mrs Roach has been fitted with a pacemaker and has made a speedy recovery.

Her daughter Jacqueline said she was expected to return to her home in Parkfield today (Thursday).

“I cannot thank the guards enough for what they have done,” she said. “Together with the ambulance and doctors they have saved my mum’s live.”

On her way back to the store she collapsed.

Fortunately, Sgt. Jorge Yero, an off duty Miami Dade officer, was working nearby and ran to get his defibrillator.

Yero shocked her twice, started chest compressions, and eventually Henderson began to breathe again.

“I wasn’t thinking,” said Sgt. Yero. “I was just doing what we are trained to do and thank God I had the AED with me and I was at the right time at the right place.”

Henderson has no memory of the whole ordeal. All she remembers is a dream in which she saw long lost relatives at her childhood home.

“The door was cracked and there was this sunset light,” recalled Henderson. “The light drew me to the room and when I went to the room, I went to push the door open and the door closed back.”

She said her grandmother and other relatives told her to go home and that’s when she woke up and returned to life. Despite the ordeal, Henderson said she’s eager to return to work.

“If I could I would,” she said. “I don’t have no regrets no regrets thousands and thousands of shoplifters, I have no regrets.”

Almost immediately she was surrounded by help.

Off-duty nurses and firefighters who were shopping, a police officer working store security and Walmart employees all pitched in.

Some of them performed CPR.

They kept Davis alive until the ambulance arrived nine minutes later.

Her heart was revived with an electric shock en route to Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital.

One worker ran to fetch a first aid kit while other workers formed a human chain to give the rescue workers room to move.

Stephanie Pruett, a Walmart employee who performed the first chest compressions on Davis.

Some of the rescuers include :

Sgt. Mike Henne of the Yakima Police Department, who was working as private security for Walmart and performed CPR.

Tara Prescott, an off-duty Memorial Hospital registered nurse who performed CPR.

Ed Vertrees, an off-duty Yakima Training Center firefighter who performed CPR.

Sara Wisner, an off-duty registered nurse, who helped keep Davis’ airway open during CPR and helped ambulance workers keep a tight seal on a respirator bag.

As far as she can tell, Davis has fully recovered from the incident, though she has a stent in her heart and her family teases her about brain damage.

“I am just about normal as far as that goes, but that’s not saying a lot,” she said with a laugh.

She appreciated all her rescuers’ efforts, but they didn’t surprise her.

“A lot of people, more than you realize, are willing to help people in any way they can,” Davis said.