WESTFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – When retired Holyoke court officer Mark Stevens suffered a heart attack and drove his pickup truck into a tree, he couldn’t of possibly known that school nurse Christina Lovelace would end up saving his life.
There was a recent reunion with Stevens and his wife at Lovelace’s Westfield home. They checked out the tree that Steven’s pickup had collided with as his life was slipping away.
“He had no pulse and he was actually stuck in the driver’s seat of the car,” Lovelace said. “Oh I was devastated. I’m a nurse, and I don’t see success stories of this magnitude, even on a good setting when you have everything available immediately.”
In the back of her mind, Lovelace was afraid her best efforts might not be enough to save Steven’s life.
“I can’t be more thankful to Christina,” Stevens said. “Never met the woman in my life and I was so happy she saved my life. I was so happy I was alive, and she did it. The doctors told me that day, if she didn’t perform CPR on me, I wouldn’t be here to walk my daughter down the aisle. It was exactly one month to the day, I was supposed to walk my daughter down the aisle.”
Steven’s daughter expressed her gratitude to Lovelace for what this hometown hero had done to save her dad’s life, so that he could walk with her down the aisle.
“I just thought that was absolutely amazing, because you know, my dad walked me down the aisle,” said Lovelace. “So I got it. I understood what that is like.”
Lovelace will receive her recognition as a Western Massachusetts Red Cross Hometown Hero at the Heroes Breakfast the morning of March 17.
