PHOENIX -- Umpire Jim Joyce administered CPR on a female concessions employee at Chase Field, helping to save her life, before Monday's game between the Marlins and Diamondbacks. But Marlins bullpen coordinator Jeff Urgelles, a trained paramedic, assisted in the rescue.
"It was nerve wracking because I haven't been in that situation in a while," said Urgelles, who was a paramedic for a Miami-Dade ambulance company before quitting that job in 2009 to become the Marlins' bullpen catcher.
Urgelles said he was throwing batting practice to Marlins pitchers about 90 minutes before Monday's game when he heard the cry for help. The woman, Jayne Power, had gone into cardiac arrest in a tunnel near the umpire's room.
"I dropped the balls I had in my hand and ran to the hallway, where she was down," Urgelles said.
When Urgelles arrived, Joyce was already performing CPR.
Urgelles said he called out instructions to Joyce, who told reporters on Tuesday that he learned CPR as a student in high school. At one point, Urgelles said that Joyce, thinking the woman was coming to when she began gasping for breath, stopped what he was doing. But Urgelles told him to continue with the chest compressions. When medics arrived, Urgelles said he helped them hook the woman up to monitors and place her on an ambulance stretcher.
The word out of Phoenix on Tuesday was that the woman was expected to make a full recovery.
Joyce, one of the most highly respected umpires in the majors, is probably best known for his missed call that cost Detroit's Armando Galarraga a perfect game in 2010.
"Jim Joyce is a great man," said Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen. "He's a stronger man than me. I might run and ask for help. I'm pretty weak in those situations. But, what he did, it showed you what kind of person he is. I think God puts you there for a reason, and he put Jim Joyce there to save that woman's life."
