Gabe Shallouf thought it was odd to see a lawnmower sitting on the lawn off Southeast Oatfield Road shortly after noon today with nobody in sight. Then he realized an elderly man was lying on the ground next to the mower.

"Stop the car! Stop the car!" Shallouf shouted to his mother, and bolted up a small hill.

"I was just screaming at the guy to wake up," said Shallouf, 19. "But he wasn't breathing, and I couldn't find a pulse. Luckily, I knew what to do."

Shallouf began administering CPR, which firefighters are crediting for saving the man's life. Due to medical privacy rules, the man was not identified.

When Shallouf's mother, Dana Pascoe, parked their car and approached the lawn near

, Shallouf threw her his cellphone so she could call 9-1-1 and resumed the rhythmic chest compressions.

Meanwhile, two other people stopped. One monitored the man's pulse while the other kept shouting at the man, hoping to bring him back to consciousness.

"I thought I had lost him a couple of times," Shallouf said. "He turned purple and breathed what sounded like a last breath. But I didn't stop the CPR. I knew I shouldn't stop until paramedics arrived."

In just a couple of minutes, a

crew arrived and began advanced life support measures to revive the man, said Brandon Paxton, fire district spokesman. Before he was taken by ambulance to Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Center, the man was alert and talking to firefighters at the scene.

"I stuck around to make sure he was OK," Shallouf said. "When he began complaining about the firefighters messing with him, I knew he was doing better."

Shallouf expressed thanks of his own to the two people who stopped to help him.

"Without their help, I couldn't have done what I did," he said. "It definitely was a team effort."

Shallouf said he first learned CPR when he served briefly as a Navy corpsman. Later, he completed a civilian course and earned a certificate.

"They tell you that once you learn, you never forget, that it all will come back to you," Shallouf said. "I never believed that before I had a chance to actually use my training. Today, I knew they were right -- I knew exactly what to do."

Paxton said CPR training is easily available and urged everyone to visit the

for more information.

--