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You Just Saved This Girl's Life

By Jonathon Sharp, WCCO, 11/04/21, 12:15PM CDT

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BLAINE, Minn. (WCCO) — A college student is being credited with saving the life of a high school hockey player after she collapsed on the ice.

It happened Sunday afternoon at the Super Rink in Blaine, during a girls hockey game.

“Somebody said she went down and then tried to get up and then she collapsed,” said coach Bill Manuel.

It was the championship game of the Premiere Prep League. And in the middle of it all Manuel saw a player fall awkwardly to the ice, not because of a collision but because she had stopped breathing.

Zoe Sternberg, a student at St. Catherine University, was the EMT on site and rushed out to the girl. She couldn’t a pulse so she began CPR.

(Zoe Sternberg was a Brookfield Glacier and Wisconsin Selects standout.)

“I was thinking OK, she’s going to come around,” Manuel said. “She’s going to come around. But she’s not coming around. She’s not coming around.”

But Sternberg didn’t give up. After what seemed like an eternity, even though it was about 3 minutes, the girl finally opened her eyes.

“All of the sudden she took a deep breath and her eyes… I’ll never forget that look of, Oh my God what happened,” Manuel said. “I remember looking across at Zoe the EMT. I just looked at her and said, you just saved this girl’s life.”

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