CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. — What would you do if you saw someone collapse? Would you know how to save their life? One man hopes his story inspires you to learn life-saving techniques.

Phil Clough doesn’t want all this attention. In fact, he says he’s ready to move on from telling his heroic tale and focus on getting more people trained in CPR.

What You Need To Know

  •  Phil Clough was waiting for his luggage at Buffalo Niagara International Airport when a woman collapsed

  •  After six minutes of CPR and a shock from an AED, Rebecca Sada's heart started beating again 

  • You can get CPR training from the American Red Cross 

“There was a guy yelling for help,” Phil Clough recalled. “He sounded like he was a little bit panicked.”

It was June 3. Clough was traveling for work. He had just flown in from Colorado and was standing at the baggage claim.

“Like everybody else, just waiting for the buzzer to go off for the baggage to come,” he continued. “I just remember that suddenly there was a commotion nearby at the escalators.”

Like any human, Clough wanted to see what was going on. But unlike the dozens of others standing around at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport, Clough knew what he had to do next.

“Everything I'd seen up until then, my assumption was this woman just fell down the escalator,” Clough said. “So right away, I'm thinking she's got a head injury.”

But that wasn't the case.

“Her breathing actually stopped. So I'm holding her head in my hands and she kind of lets out a like a gasp and her ... her whole body [was] kind of limp,” Clough said.

Clough holds an emergency medical responder certification. He immediately started CPR and eventually yelled for a bystander to grab an AED.

“I remember hearing my voice echoing in the airport, which was a little weird,” Clough recalled.

Clough says about six minutes later, a heartbeat. Another bystander asked the woman they’d been saving to try and communicate. 

“If you can hear us blink twice,” Clough said. “And again, I'm sitting right over Rebecca's face, looking at her in the eyes, and she does this like two kind of slow blinks and like, the crowd was like, 'holy cow.' "

From there, Clough talked Rebecca Sada through breathing.

“When I was able to hear people for the first time, he, I remember him saying to me, just breathe,” Sada recalled. “Because I was so scared. I have no idea what happened.”

Sada had a heart attack.

“I started feeling little flutters in my heart, and I suddenly got extremely dizzy, and I collapsed,” Sada recalled.

Sada remembers nothing up until she blinked her eyes and began breathing again.

“He's very strong because I had some ribs fractured, but thank God, because that's if you do CPR correctly, that's what can happen,” Sada smiled.

The 53-year-old mother of two is forever grateful for her new extended family — and for this second chance.

“I know you don't want me to say thank you anymore, but I will forever,” Sada smiled and said.

Clough doesn’t want any recognition. He asks if what he did is really that special.

“To me, it's not a big special thing. I kind of feel like what we did for Rebecca was just what everybody should be able to do," Clough said.

As far as CPR training goes, you can take it in person or online through the American Red Cross. It takes only a couple of hours. The cost varies on what you want to get certified in.