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Nursing student credited with saving woman's life in Snake Pit at Indy 500

Posted at 7:30 PM, May 31, 2017
and last updated 2017-05-31 21:01:02-04

INDIANAPOLIS -- A nursing student is being called a hero after she helped save another woman’s life in the Snake Pit on Indy 500 weekend.

Amanda Hensley said she was attending the event Sunday afternoon when she saw a woman in need of medical help.

On a video that was taken at the event - and later removed from the internet - a woman could be seen lifelessly lying on the ground with several others crowding around her screaming “she’s not breathing” and trying to revive her.

The video then showed another woman hopping the fence, checking a pulse and doing chest compressions for several minutes – that woman was Hensley. 

“It was very scary,” said Hensley, who is a nursing student at Harrison College. 

Hensley said she ran over to the woman who was lying on the ground and checked for a pulse, and when she didn’t feel one, she started the chest compressions like she was taught in medical school.  

“I mean, of course, you go to those classes and you’re like, ‘another CPR class… I don’t even want to sit through the 8-hour process,’” said Hensley. “But this obviously shows this works, and it was worth it."

After several minutes of chest compressions, the unconscious woman finally took a breath and sat up just before emergency crews arrived.

Hensley says she was just "in the right place at the right time" and does not consider herself a hero.

According to the Speedway Police Department, the young woman who was unconscious was “very” drunk, and they do not believe she ever lost her pulse.

Hensley said she hopes to meet the young woman again someday to see how she is doing. 

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