Couple honored for saving man's life

-, KYNDELL HARKNESS

Ryan Sportel, a nurse, talked about how he had to hand off 10-day-old Sullivan to a bystander so that he and his wife Amy, who is also a nurse, could administer CPR. This file photo is from August.

Star Tribune

Last update: November 17, 2009 - 12:11 AM

A St. Paul couple with a newborn baby and citizens and law enforcers who worked on an initiative to reduce street-level drug dealing were honored Monday with the St. Paul Police Department's Chief's Award.

The award is the department's highest honor given to non-sworn personnel, said spokesman Sgt. Paul Schnell. The award went to:

• Amy and Ryan Sportel, an intensive-care nurse and nurse anesthetist, respectively, were soothing their 10-day-old son, Sully, with an evening walk on Aug. 28 when a 60-year-old man driving east in the 1600 block of Hague Avenue in the Mac-Groveland neighborhood crashed his vehicle into a parked car.

The couple administered CPR to the victim, who initially was not breathing and had no pulse, until paramedics arrived. The man survived.

• Representatives from Metro Transit police, Securian Companies, St. Joseph's Hospital, the Woodbury Police Department and the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office were honored for participating in Operation Shamrock. During the program that took place from 2007 and into 2008, law enforcement arrested and charged more than 100 people with drug-related crimes committed at bus stops and other areas in downtown St. Paul.

TIM HARLOW, PAT PHEIFER

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