Birthday turns into life-threatening situation

Jessie and her friends were celebrating her birthday in Redmond when all of the sudden one of her friends went into cardiac arrest.

“It was so crazy,” Jessie, 15, told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson.

Related: Dori talks to the 911 dispatcher

The girls were joking around and hanging out, Jessie said. It was a care-free atmosphere.

“Then it changed [immediately],” she said. “At first I thought Isabella was joking, but once I realized how serious it was … it went from light-hearted to super-focused and intense.”

Luckily, for their friend, Jessie was CPR certified. The girls called 911 and bought time until medics arrived.

Something like that is strange for anybody to have to go through, Dori told Jessie.

“It’s just so out of the blue, too,” he said.

Chris Perez, the 911 dispatcher who helped Jessie, told Dori the girls did a great job describing their location to him – so that he was able to quickly send help.

“After that, that’s when I started asking about what was going on,” Perez said. “Was her chest rising and falling? They already told me she had collapsed and wasn’t responding. So based on those answers, I knew we needed to start CPR.”

Perez said the girls did a great job staying calm and focusing on keeping their friend alive. So much so that he had the adults who arrived on scene hand the phone back over to the teens.

Jessie and two of her friends, Hana, 11, and Bella, 12, were recognized by the city of Redmond on Tuesday for helping Isabella.

Perez got a chance to meet the girls.

“It was a really emotional night. It was great to put all the names and faces to all the people I heard on the phone,” he said.

Jessie told Dori that Perez was encouraged by how cool and collect he was.

“I remember this one point in the call he told me that I was his eyes and ears. It just made me think, ‘I have to do this,'” she said.

Perez said he has the best job in the world and moments like this are what motivate him to keep going.