TULALIP — It was the night before Hailey Enick’s 15th birthday.
Hailey, her mom, best friend and little sister were picking up a Spider-Man cake for the birthday party from a store on the Tulalip Indian Reservation.
Hailey’s mom, Nicole Enick, decided to drive the long way back to I-5 toward their home in Everett. She’s originally from the reservation, and she wanted to get a good picture of Saturday’s lunar eclipse.
The moon was “huge and red and orange,” said Jasmine Daniels, who’s been Hailey’s best friend since the fifth grade.
It was about 9 p.m. Nicole Enick pulled over in the parking lot of the McDonald’s off Marine Drive NE. The girls noticed a man in a nearby car wasn’t moving. The man’s friends were gathered around, shaking him and dumping cold water on him. Others were standing around, watching.
Hailey and Jasmine knew what to do. The Everett High School freshmen had recently taken CPR training from their health teacher, Darrell Olson.
The training for students is organized through the Medic One Foundation and the Everett Fire Department.
The girls pulled the roughly 250-pound man from his driver’s seat and began taking turns doing chest compressions. He had a pulse, but he wasn’t breathing and his eyes were rolled into the back of his head, Hailey said.
“I was shaking the whole time, but they were brave,” Nicole Enick said.
In class, the girls had practiced CPR on fake hollow chests made of a plastic-like material, Jasmine said. Saturday was the first time they tried the compressions on a real person.
“It was not the same,” she said.
From class, they knew not to stop, Hailey said. After about five minutes, the man started gasping for air. Hailey’s little sister, Meleah, 11, watched it all take place.
A few minutes later, police and paramedics arrived and took over.
One of the police officers on scene told the girls the man wouldn’t have made it without their CPR, Hailey said. They believed the man, who appeared to be in his 30s, had a drug overdose.
The man had marks on his arms, so the girls knew to watch out for needles in his car, they said.
The girls all shared a tearful hug after the man was put in an ambulance. They hadn’t eaten anything but doughnuts that day, and the adrenaline made it hard to sleep that night.
They had paid attention in the CPR class but never thought they’d use the lesson, Jasmine said.
“Everyone should learn how to do CPR,” Hailey said.
They shared the story on Facebook. Together, Hailey and Jasmine’s posts got more than 500 “likes.”
Hailey, the oldest of seven kids, is smart, studious and a good helper at home, her mother said.
“We’re so proud of her,” Nicole Enick said. “I’m so amazed. She was 14 and she was able to keep herself together. You never expect people at a young age to be able to do something like that. Other people just look away.”
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com.
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