Ankeny construction company owner saves coworker's life on site with CPR

WINTERSET, Iowa — An Iowa man has been deemed a "hero" for performing "a miracle" on Monday night by saving his coworker's life.

After a Monday morning meeting at HomeRevisions' building in Ankeny, owner Nick Darland and general manager Nathan Kessler headed out to a barn-installation project near Winterset.

Twenty minutes after arriving at the construction site, Kessler collapsed due to a blocked artery. His family later confirmed with Local 5 Kessler had a heart attack.

Darland and a couple of vendors immediately began performing emergency treatments, including CPR, on Kessler.

After what Darland said was around 10 minutes of chest compressions, the Madison County Sheriff's Department arrived on the scene and "took over when we got there," said Madison County Sheriff Jason Barnes.

Aside from working as the owner of HomeRevisions, Darland also served in the Iowa Army National Guard for 11 years. He took a life-saver training course a couple of times throughout his military career, but contrasted the training environment from the "real-life scenario".

"The thing I'm just most proud of is, everybody reacted, everybody was a critical part of getting Nathan to the appropriate medical care safely, and because of that, [Nathan's] here today," Darland said.

"Whoever was doing those compressions without doubt saved [Nathan's] life," Barnes said. 

However, Darland credits the work of the others on the scene Monday, including emergency first-responders, for performing the real "miracle."

"I'm not the hero of this story," Darland said. "I was his heart for 10 minutes, but Nathan had the will to fight and the will to keep living. And whether he remembers it or not, this was Nathan's battle, you know, we were just there. And we gave him the guidance."

As of Wednesday afternoon, Kessler is back on his feet and walking again, but Darland reassures there's still a long recovery ahead for what he calls his "family."

Darland and Kessler's father, Alan, want Iowans to take away one important message from this story: get trained on how to do CPR.