ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — It was a motorcycle crash turned "miracle."
On Feb. 22, St. Petersburg Fire Rescue was called to the scene of a devastating motorcycle crash at the intersection of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard N and 30th Avenue N, discovering the teenage rider "appeared lifeless".
Chase Batchelder, 18, had stopped breathing just after those crews got to the scene of the crash.
"He was in the middle of the street, and it looked pretty futile, honestly," firefighter paramedic William Fletcher, one of the first on the scene, said.
Chase was suffering from "traumatic cardiac arrest."
"When we got to him, he was taking that last breath, and his pulse was going away," Fletcher explained.
The first responders said they worked quickly to open his airways and give him defibrillation and CPR. He was transported to Orlando Health Bayfront in St. Petersburg where he was successfully resuscitated. They estimate he was without a pulse for 20 to 30 minutes.
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), survival rates from traumatic cardiac arrest have an approximately 2% chance of surviving to hospital discharge.
Now, five weeks later, Chase Batchelder is out of the hospital. On Friday, he and his mother reunited with the first responders who saved his life for the first time since the crash.
His mother Danielle Batchelder said, "It was so good to see them and meet them and hug them because they saved him."
The reunion set the stage for an award ceremony, with the team that saved Chase recognized for EMS Excellence.
Chase's mother spoke at the ceremony and said, "I'm sure you might have felt defeated for all your hard work and no change in his response, but if it were not for you, Chase would not be here with us today. Thank you for your perseverance and not giving up."
Danielle Batchelder said the first responders who saved her son are now part of her family.
"This outcome is truly a miracle," Danielle Batchelder said.