Vada Carawan felt fear, yet remained determined.
A young girl, only 11 years old, faced a critical moment as her father experienced a heart attack, prompting her to utilize her newly acquired CPR skills.
Vada, a member of a Virginia Beach Girl Scout troop, had recently learned CPR just 11 days prior. In a critical moment late last month, with her father unresponsive and her dog distressed, she focused her efforts on saving him.
“Just put your mind to anything that you would want to do,” Vada explained to Nexstar’s WAVY, recounting the moment. “First, I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can do CPR,’ but apparently, I can.”
And she followed through.
“Of course, it was scary,” Vada recalled. “And I started tearing up and I was like, ‘What do I do?’ Like, for a minute there, I was in complete shock. And then I was like, ‘Heart attack … heart attack, 911.’”
At that moment, everyone was fully engaged in the effort to preserve his life.
“Maggie, my dog, was freaking out,” said Vada, who had just celebrated a birthday four days earlier. “She was trying to wake him up, like, put her paw on there, like trying to wake him up.”
Vada realized she needed to take action to rescue her father. She performed chest compressions on her dad while speaking with a dispatcher, an experience that was nearly beyond words.
Thanks to the paramedics who responded, they successfully revived her dad and restored his heartbeat before transporting him to the hospital. Her dad is currently in the hospital, but he is making progress towards recovery.
“It’s kind of hard to put into words because it was so scary,” Vada said. “I think I was a little weaker because it’s not the same doing it on a dummy because it’s not your dad.”
During her Girl Scout meeting, they had CPR training.
“I was actually the only person in my whole class to successfully save our dummy because when you do CPR, the dummy has lights, and if it’s green, you’re doing it correctly,” Vada said. “Going deep enough and all that, and you have the right amount of strength.”
Amanda Carawan expresses pride in her daughter Vada for her brave deeds.
“She got to be his hero,” Amanda told WAVY. “I was like, he’s her hero every day, but you know, she got to be his hero this time.”
