Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) used CPR Tuesday morning to save the life of a man who collapsed in the Charlotte, North Carolina airport.
The Daily Caller reports that Roe was walking through the airport terminal at about 7:15 a.m. when someone called for a doctor. Roe, who was an obstetrician before he first ran for public office, ran to the man's aid.
"When I got there, he wasn’t breathing," Roe told The Daily Caller in a phone interview.
Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), who was with Roe at the time, said the man had "literally just collapsed" when Roe started performing CPR.
“I bet the guy wasn’t down probably 30 seconds before Phil was taking care of him," Mulvaney said. Roe and another doctor who rushed to the man's aid performed CPR for "five or six minutes" Mulvaney estimated.
"They pumped his chest pretty good. It was work, it was pretty intimidating to watch," Mulvaney said.
Paramedics, who arrived at the scene shortly after Roe, determined that the man had flat-lined. After resuscitating him with a defibrillator, they transported the man to an area hospital.
Roe teamed up with other GOP House doctors in June to speak out against President Barack Obama's Medicare plan, specifically the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) that is charged with cutting benefits that are not deemed to be cost effective.
"With the IPAB, there will be drastic cuts to patient care based on a budget, not on the patient’s needs or quality of care," Roe said. "This is a dangerous board that must be repealed before it does great damage to the Medicare program.”
The doctor has also been ad advocate for the health care of veterans, working to pass the Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act of 2009.
Roe said he had never dealt with a cardiac arrest victim in public before. He refused to take full credit for saving the life of the traveler, praising the policemen and EMTs who were on the scene.
"I don’t know who this guy is, I don’t know a thing about him," Roe told The Daily Caller. "I’m just glad that myself and the others there were able to help.”