Off-duty firefighters save man's life during outing on beach

    FORT MYERS BEACH, Florida (WBBH) -- What started as a normal day quickly turned into a fight to save a man's life on Fort Myers Beach.

Naples firefighters Sam Scholtz and Thomas Jysim were at the beach with their girlfriends when they noticed something wrong.

"Tommy happened to just look over and say, hey, Sam, I think someone is down," said Scholtz.

Quickly sensing the panic on the sand in front of Margaritaville, the two ran towards the group gathered around the man and jumped into action.

"Like when we started CPR, his pulse was, he didn't have a pulse when we first saw him. We felt for a pulse and he didn't have one. So he had no pulse," said Jysim.

"I said it's go time, start CPR. And Tommy got right on his chest, and we're asking for an aid. Until it was brought to us, we were just doing continuous compressions, opening his airway, doing the best that we could with what we had," said Scholtz.

For 10 intense minutes, they kept going, worried help wouldn't arrive on time. But then, backup and a chance to shock the man's heart gave them hope.

"By the time EMS came back, he had a pulse," said Jysim. "He was breathing on his own at this time. His eyes are moving, so we can clearly tell. Like now, he was alive in his heart with working, in a sense, the way it should."

The firefighters didn't have any gear at Fort Myers Beach, but they had training and each other. Because of that, a man's life was saved.