GALION — Not everyone can say they’ve completed a half marathon, nor can everyone save they’ve helped save a life.

Jessica Wagner can now say she did both at the same time.

The Galion woman was among thousands of people who participated in the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Columbus Half Marathon on Sunday, Oct. 15. The weather, albeit a little on the warm side, made for a beautiful fall day.

This wasn’t Wagner’s first rodeo — she’s completed several half marathons and triathlons and has finished one full marathon.  

At about mile 12, her attention shifted from trying to maintain a steady pace to a disturbance up ahead on the course. Several people were jumping, waving their arms and “clearly hysterical,” Wagner described.

As she drew closer, she noticed that a man was lying on the ground at their feet. Immediately she raced their direction and knelt beside Joe Boyd of Elburn, Illinois, who had collapsed while running the half.     

Wagner, who works as a physician assistant in cardiothoracic surgery at OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital, felt for a pulse. His breathing was agonal, his pulse weak.

As she’s assessing him, a crowd begins to form. A female nurse approaches, asking how she can help. A male doctor and sheriff’s deputy also offer assistance.

Ultimately Boyd’s pulse comes to a halt, and it’s at this point Wagner begins to perform CPR.

“From that first compression everything fell silent,” she recounted.

She and an off-duty fireman took turns performing CPR until the medics and an automated external defibrillator arrived.

“It felt like an eternity,” she said. “But it really wasn’t that long.”

The medics took over from there and used the AED to restore his heartbeat. Wagner — who had gone onto finish the race in under two hours, clocking a time of one hour, 59 minutes and three seconds — later learned that they were able to revive him.

Boyd, 52, had suffered a heart attack. He was transported to Grant Medical Center, where he had two stents inserted into his heart to relieve blockage in two arteries. By Thursday of that week, he was already back to work.

He ran the race with the goal of finishing in under two hours. With about one mile left, he started to feel light-headed.

“I went to put my hands on my knees to catch my breath and before I could do that I hit the ground,” he said. “I was out before I hit the ground.”

About one hour following his angioplasty he was stable, he said.

“You would think somebody collapsing like that wouldn’t be in good shape, but I’ve completed three marathons and a 50K race in the last 12 months,” he said.

He plans to begin cardiac rehab and running again soon in the hope of participating the Columbus half marathon next year, “and complete it this time,” he said.

He was left speechless by Wagner and the many other Good Samaritans who aided him while he was unconscious.

“I can’t even describe it,” he said.

Wagner doesn’t consider herself heroic.

“Anybody else would have done the same thing in my position,” she said. “I just happened to be at the right place at the right time.”

Like Boyd, she, too, was touched by the amount of help offered and provided that day from other passersby.

“The humanity demonstrated that day was incredible,” she said. “I was surrounded by people who wanted to help another person. It was refreshing.”

Wagner had the opportunity to share this story during an Lexington High School assembly that centered on the importance of CPR training. 

“It takes one person to have the strength and the courage to start,” she told the sophomores. “I was not there alone. There were so many people there to help me. It was truly a group effort.”

She implored them to take CPR training seriously. “Because some day you will be that person helping somebody else,” she said.

She first learned CPR while training to become a lifeguard in high school and has continued to stay current in CPR with her profession.

“I’ve performed (CPR) in the workplace, and last week, eight days ago, I performed it for the first time outside of the medical institution,” she said.

Although it was unfamiliar territory, she knew what to do.

“It happened exactly in the same way that you are going to practice this is in your class… They’re going to teach you to ask, ‘Are you okay?’ ‘Call for an AED.’ ‘Call 9-1-1,'” she said.

“So when you’re training for this, speak it loud. Speak it like you mean it. Because you are going to use this,” she said.