Police Officer Saves Crossing Guard's Life Using CPR

CHICAGO — A Chicago police officer is being praised after saving the life of a crossing guard who collapsed in front of her while the two were working near a busy intersection in the West Beverly neighborhood one morning last week.

Mary Ellen Meuris, a 17-year veteran officer of the Chicago Police Department, said it was "surreal" to one minute be talking with the crossing guard, Mount Greenwood neighborhood resident Melissa Schofield, and then the next minute to have to go into complete life-saving mode.

"I was shaken up a bit myself," Meuris said of the moment last Wednesday morning when she saw Schofield trip and fall unconscious on the concrete near the corner of 103rd and Washtenaw and St. John Fisher School.

Schofield did not have a pulse.

"Out of fear and panic, I started doing CPR," Meuris said.

She kept performing CPR until more first responders showed up. Four other police officers and two civilians, one a nurse who Meuris said "kept her at ease" during the entire ordeal, helped in the mean time.

"To the two godsend angels, I'd like to personally thank you and Melissa would like to thank you too," Meuris said of the two civilians who came to help, neither of whom's identity is known.

"It took a village that day and the village triumphed. Thank God."

Schofield was taken to Little Company of Mary Hospital and will make a full recovery. She was able to meet Meuris again face-to-face at the Chicago Police Department's 22nd District station in Morgan Park on Monday.

"I am overwhelmed that someone jumped in right when I was in need to make sure I was safe," Schofield said. "It means the world to me, and it means the world to my family."

Meuris and Schofield both say they'll be friends for life after this.

"After that day, it's a friendship that will last forever," Meuris said.