Ethan had owned his CPR training manikins for exactly two weeks when he found an actual stranger lying unconscious in the road and had to put them to use for real.

  • 15 years old at the time he performed the rescue
  • 600–800 chest compressions delivered over roughly six minutes
  • £60 cost of the resuscitation manikins he'd bought to teach others
  • 1 in 13 survival rate for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in England's East Midlands, per Resuscitation Council UK

A collapse on Ley Lane

Ethan, a Year 10 pupil at The Manor Academy in Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, was walking home from a casual gardening job around 2:30pm on September 18 when he saw a 75-year-old man slumped "half in the road and half on the pavement." The man had agonal breathing — a telltale rasping sign of cardiac arrest — and was unresponsive.

A bystander was already on the phone to 999 but didn't know how to perform chest compressions. She let Ethan take charge. Together they moved the man onto flat ground, and Ethan began the compressions he'd learned the year before on a one-off course with the East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS).

"It was adrenaline like never before, but I knew I had to stay calm, and not think too hard about the immense pressure of putting someone's life in your hands," Ethan said.

Six minutes, three rescuers, one defibrillator

An off-duty carer from King's Mill Hospital and a teacher from a nearby primary school soon joined in, rotating compressions with Ethan until paramedics arrived with a defibrillator roughly six minutes later. Ethan estimates the group delivered between 600 and 800 compressions in total before professional help took over.

He described a "massive sense of relief" when he saw the man had a "shockable rhythm" — a sign the defibrillator could restart a viable heartbeat. The man's family later confirmed he was recovering steadily. His daughter, Erica, who asked that her father's name stay private, said the family was "so grateful for the bravery that Ethan showed."

"If it wasn't for Ethan and other passing public, there would have been a very different outcome," she said.

Turning one rescue into a habit

Ethan has wanted to be a paramedic since he was 11, when he helped care for his grandparents. He'd bought the manikins specifically to run free life-saving sessions for other young people and has already led training at local scout groups. He believes teenagers often avoid learning CPR because they feel awkward about touching a stranger — and wants more of them to know that UK law, under the Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Act 2015, protects people who step in to help during an emergency.

His headteacher, Robert Gladwin, said the school would now invest in teaching more pupils life-saving skills, calling Ethan's composure "absolutely critical" to the outcome. Jay Astles of EMAS praised Ethan's willingness to "step forward" and echoed his central message for everyone, not just students: learn CPR and how to use a defibrillator, because — as Ethan proved — having the confidence to act can be the difference between life and death.