CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (CLARKSVILLENOW) – Sonja Nixon Frazier and her Taco Bell co-workers noticed their drive-thru line had come to a halt on Wednesday, Aug. 12.
“We were seeing cars and hearing the bell go off, but nobody was coming through the drive-thru,” said Frazier, a manager at the Madison Street Taco Bell. “One of my managers looked on the camera and saw a car was parked the wrong way. It looked like it’d rolled into the drive-thru line and was blocking it.”
One of her co-workers, Jonathan, went outside to investigate and saw a man leaned over in the driver seat of a van.
“When I got to the back door and saw it, Jonathan yelled, ‘He’s passed out!’ and I yelled to another employee to call the ambulance,” Frazier said. “We opened the door, and he was blue. I told Jonathan to park the car, and we both pulled him out and put him on the ground. I said to put him on his left side. His hands and fingertips were blue. I found a pulse, but it was real vague. Anissa came out with the 911 dispatcher (on the phone), and they asked if anyone knew CPR.”
Frazier, 37, originally from Nashville, has worked at Taco Bell for about 14 years. But she previously worked as a home healthcare worker for six years and had taken multiple first-aid courses for certification.
“I started CPR until the fire truck came. It seemed like it took a while,” Frazier said. “I pulled his jaw down. He gasped. I kept talking to him. I asked Jonathan to see if he had a license so I could call him by name. I kept calling him by his last name and talking to him.”
Frazier said the ordeal was intense as she continued compressions and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
“It was kind of crazy. I’m extremely scared of COVID-19 … but I would not leave him,” she said. “He was trying to get something up. It sounded like a gurgle. I just kept doing the compressions until they got here. They didn’t immediately take over, so I guess I was doing it right.”
When first-responders arrived, Frazier said the man had begun to regain some of his color.
“When (the first responders) picked him up, his hand grabbed the guy’s arm,” she said. She breathed a sigh of relief.
“I went and smoked a cigarette and cried,” she said after the ambulance had taken him away.
But she couldn’t rest without knowing that the man was OK.
“I found him on Facebook – I couldn’t forget his face or name,” Frazier said. “He reached back out and said thank you. He said he wanted to repay me, but this is repayment enough to know he’s OK.”
The man said he wanted to thank her in person and explained his condition to her during their conversation.
“I said lunch is on me,” she said. “I said everything happens for a reason.”
Frazier said she usually works the night shift, but she came in that day to work a few hours and help the general manager. Jonathan Jeanis, a manager at Taco Bell, was the person who discovered the man and helped pull him out the car, which Frazier said she wouldn’t have been able to do alone. Anissa Stewart called 911 and relayed instructions and information to her managers.
“I feel blessed. I feel I did what everyone would’ve done. I didn’t care about his race, politics, none of that. … It never crossed my mind. It was his life and he needed help,” Frazier said.
“I feel like anybody that knows how to do so should jump at the opportunity to help. We are all human, and we all have to love each other and help.”