For Fayetteville Water Department employees Timothy Bolton and Karen Austin, it was not work as usual.

But their efforts Jan. 26, and those of E-911 dispatcher Carmen Rivera, saved the life of a man who collapsed in his yard in full cardiac arrest.

The life-saving efforts of the trio will be honored at the Thursday city council meeting.

It was 2:30 p.m. as Austin and Bolton were working to complete a sidewalk project on Stayman Park in the Apple Orchard subdivision. They were replacing the sidewalk as part of a sewer repair project, said Director of Water Rick Eastin.

“He was working in his yard. Then Tim saw him on the ground. We rushed over there and Tim yelled, ‘Call 911,’” Austin said.

Their dash from the sidewalk of the adjacent house to the where the man had fallen was a matter of about 30 feet and a handful of seconds. But the minutes that followed were ones where time stood still on a January afternoon in Fayetteville.

“My first thought seeing him laying there, I just thought he needed help getting up,” Bolton said as he quickly realized it was no ordinary fall. “His eyes were open and his skin was a yellowish color. I asked him if he was okay, but I didn’t get a response. So I fell on my knees and started CPR. I was pumping and pumping and talking, telling him to ‘Come on, talk to me’ but he didn’t respond. In my mind I knew he was dead, but I kept on.”

All the while, Austin was on the phone with Rivera at the 911 Center.

“I was upset. I never saw anything like that. I thought he was dead,” Austin explained. “I was crying, but the dispatcher helped us with the CPR, with counting compressions and she kept asking us if he was breathing. The EMTs got there and they were calm, but our blood pressure was high.”

They did what they had to do to give EMTs something to work with, Eastin said, smiling.

Paramedics from Fayette County who arrived at the scene were able to turn a non-responsive patient into one with a cardiac rhythm and respirations as he was transported for medical treatment. Fayetteville Fire Department was also present to render aid.

“I can actually say I saw a dead man come back to life.” Bolton said. Like Austin, he was still amazed at the experience half a week later as the two sat in the Public Works office on First Manassas Mile Friday afternoon.

Speaking over the weekend in the conference room at the 911 Center, a very modest Carmen Rivera spoke of the efforts of Bolton and Austin. She said dispatchers expect that caring people will be often in duress while lending assistance in life and death situations. For 911 operators, it is their job to obtain all needed information while responding to the duress of the caller.

“I’m just grateful we have good Samaritans who made the conscious choice to help,” Rivera said. “On our end, we just did our job. So I’m thanking the Water Department employees who chose to do what they did. At (the 911 Center) we have an awesome team that cares. Sometimes we take things like this home with us, even though we don’t know the people or what happens with them. When we heard he had a pulse, we were high-fiving each other in the radio room.”

Fayetteville Fire Department Public Information Officer Bill Rieck acknowledged the work of Austin and Bolton and the assistance of Rivera at the dispatch center.

“These two employees were instrumental by providing immediate life saving intervention through activating the 911 system and administering CPR until advanced emergency care could be delivered,” Rieck said. “On this day, the right people were in the right place to assist this citizen in his time of need.”

The two would not have been on the sidewalk that day if the city had decided to snake-out the sewer line rather than doing what was needed by replacing the portion of sewer line and repairing the sidewalk.

Rivera, Bolton and Austin will be honored with a proclamation Thursday night at 7 p.m. at the meeting of Fayetteville City Council.