Some plays are bigger than the game. And for Magnus Miller, 18, this one was the play of a lifetime.
The high schooler from Oklahoma was competing in a high school basketball game last Thursday when he saw a player on the opposing team collapse to the court.
Miller saved the young man’s life, and on Tuesday, saw him for the first time since.
“I honestly don’t know what to say to you,” Randy Vitales, 16, said as he stood up from his hospital bed, as captured in a video provided by OU Health and published by KOCO News Oklahoma City.
“I’ll always be there for you,” Miller said as the boys embraced.
Last week, just three minutes into a basketball game between Dover High School and Life Christian Academy, Vitales dropped to the ground.
“He just went [for a] layup, and I was getting the ball, about to dribble up the court, and I turned around, and he’s on the ground,” Miller said, per KOCO. “I didn’t have any second thoughts about it, I just jumped in and took control.”
A trained lifeguard, Miller diagnosed that his opponent had gone into full cardiac arrest.
Using an automated external defibrillator, or AED, Miller delivered successive shocks to Vitale’s unconscious body and then directed school staff on how to perform CPR.
The firefighters who arrived on the scene noted Miller’s heroics, telling KOCO that he, “without a shadow of a doubt,” saved Vitales’ life.
“It’s probably one of the biggest things I’ve done in my life,” Miller said.
Probably.
The teenager spoke further about the interaction on Tuesday during the boys’ meeting in the hospital.
“It’s pretty surreal,” he said. “It’s weird hearing someone say you saved their life. But it wasn’t really me. It was God just being there for me and him. Obviously, I didn’t go there to play basketball that day.”
