Six Polk County, Ga., inmates are being celebrated after they helped save a deputy who had passed out during a work detail by rushing into action and calling 911.
According to 11 Alive, earlier this month, a deputy was working security for the work detail on Monday, June 12, when the humidity was at 100 percent and it was 76 degrees outside.
The officer, who asked to remain unidentified, collapsed.
That’s when the six inmates rushed into action, opening the officer’s shirt and removing his bulletproof vest so they could perform CPR. One inmate grabbed the officer’s phone and dialed 911.
One inmate said that the officer was unconscious for a minute and was not really breathing.
“When he started breathing, it was just real heavy and real fast,” Greg Williams, one of the six inmates, told the news station.
EMS eventually got to the scene, but Polk County Sheriff Johnny Moats still praised the inmates for their quick thinking.
“They really stepped up in a time of crisis and show that they care about my officers,” Moats told the news station. “That really speaks a lot about my officers too, how they treat these inmates. They treat them like people. Like family.”
The family members of the officers provided the six with free lunch and desserts in order to show a small token of their appreciation.
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office posted about the incident on Facebook, noting, “In Law Enforcement an Officer can be pinned [a] medal for a heroic act that involves saving another’s life.”
However, Williams told the news station that the group was just doing what needed to be done.
“When that happened, in my opinion, it wasn’t about who is in jail and who wasn’t,” Williams said. “It was about a man going down and we had to help him.”
Read more at 11 Alive.