GEORGE TOWN: A final-year medical student is already saving lives before he graduates as a doctor. N. Ganesh, 25, had helped revive a drowning victim in Teluk Bahang on March 12.

Ganesh had just emerged from the jungle after a hike when he heard people cry out, “Help! We need a doctor! He drowned!”

The frantic calls were from two men in a boat, which had landed on the beach at the Penang National Park entrance with a young man sprawled motionless on the deck.

Ganesh ran to the lifeless man on the boat and gave him mouth-to-mouth cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

“After a few pumps, the man spat out sea water and sucked in air.

“We then carried him to the beach and turned him sideways. I pushed on his stomach to make him expel more sea water,” said Ganesh, who is from Brunei.

After he was certain an ambulance was on the way, Ganesh left the Teluk Bahang beach.

“This is the first life I saved,” said the medical student who will graduate from Penang Medical College in June.

Onlookers’ photographs of his act went viral on Facebook, and Ganesh contacted The Star last Friday to check if there were any press reports on it that he could retrieve.

It is learnt that the victim, a local known only as Mohd Ridzuan, was swimming with his friends near Monkey Beach when he suddenly went under.

His friends managed to pull him out and a passing fishing boat ferried them to the park’s entrance.

“The important thing to note is that no immense amount of medical knowledge was needed to help the man.

“Everyone should learn CPR because we can never predict when it may prove useful,” Ganesh had written in a Facebook posting about the rescue.

He said there were many free CPR workshops in Penang, but felt that people were hesitant to learn.

“Many people are afraid of being blamed if the victim they were trying to save died, or they worry about gender issues if the victim was of the opposite sex,” he said.