CONTRIBUTED PHOTO — From left to right, Marshalltown Police Department (MPD) Officers William “Nat” Markle, Brian Morrison and Isaiah Birdwell recently received the department’s Lifesaving Award for their efforts to administer CPR and an AED to a Hy-Vee employee who had fallen and hit his head on Jan. 25.

Marshalltown Police Department (MPD) officers William “Nat” Markle, Brian Morrison and Isaiah Birdwell are all two years or less into their tenures with the agency, but they already know to trust the training they’ve received and their instincts in a life and death situation.

Late in the evening on Jan. 25 and after the store had closed for the night, the three were out on patrol when they heard of a 911 call regarding an unconscious, unresponsive stocker at the Marshalltown Hy-Vee who had fallen, hit his head on a shelf and gone purple in the face. His fellow employees were struggling to find an Automated External Defibrillator (AED), but the three officers arrived on the scene quickly before firefighters or EMS personnel and got to work. About a month later, they each received MPD Lifesaving Awards for their efforts.

“We took action immediately. There wasn’t any hesitation,” Morrison said.

Birdwell, a combat medic in the Army National Guard, credited the medical classes he had taken in the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy with instilling a baseline knowledge of what was expected of first responders during medical emergencies.

“When you build that initial camaraderie with the other officers on your shift, when you can trust the officers on your shift, I think that played a huge role. We all knew what we had to do just off of our training, and we trusted each other to fill whatever sort of gaps needed to be filled,” he said. “So if something wasn’t getting done, someone else kind of took it over, and that’s exactly what happened there — a good combination of trusting each other as well as relying on the information and training that we’ve received.”

Morrison, who along with Markle is an alumni of West Marshall High School, started performing CPR right away, and Markle started the AED on the man’s chest after Birdwell brought it to the scene. The all hands on deck approach worked like “a smooth machine,” in Morrison’s words.

“It is a high stress situation, but because of our training, it kind of just kicks in. You don’t think about it. You just get to work and keep working on him until fire and EMS arrive,” he said. “Credit to them. We did what we could, and then they took over and did their lifesaving measures.”

The gentleman who suffered the injury was airlifted from the local hospital but survived, which Morrison noted is a rare occurrence considering the circumstances.

“Usually when you have to do CPR, it’s at the point where that person is probably either already gone or they’re in a state where they’re probably not gonna recover from this. But I’m thankful this guy made it through,” he said.

During his military career, Birdwell has dealt with a fair number of trauma-related incidents and seen his fair share of individuals who have experienced serious medical episodes, but nonetheless, he praised his fellow officers for operating “like clockwork.”

“It felt like I almost didn’t need a lot of that medical experience because everyone was picking up and doing what they needed to do to get the work done to hopefully get this guy to the hospital and safe,” he said.

Markle commented that he didn’t think he had ever arrived on a scene quickly enough to the point where an AED gave the “Shock Advised” notice on an individual, and Morrison felt his previous career as a utility lineman and his work as a volunteer firefighter — during which he performed CPR once — came in handy, though nothing could fully prepare him for a scenario like this.

“It’s a little different now because I had to play a key role in it and had great officers and paramedics and fire to back that up,” Morrison said.

While police work is typically more associated with criminal investigations, arrests and traffic stops, all three officers touted the importance of being versatile and preparing for anything.

“As we’re driving around and doing whatever, we’re putting ourselves in situations (where we think) ‘How would we react to this? What would we do?'” Markle said.

“To add to that, I think the way I see my job is I want to be useful. I want to be helpful any way I can (and) insert myself into a situation where I have that training behind me to be useful in any situation,” Morrison said.

In the end, Birdwell added, they are first responders, whether they respond to a criminal incident or a call for service involving an individual who needs help.

“We see something new every day, and I think it’s a very positive thing that, especially our department, focuses in on allowing us to be diverse in our skill sets, so that way we’re prepared to take the reins on things where obviously there’s chaos and there’s confusion involved. And there’s someone there that can take the lead, have that expertise and that specific set so that the problem can be solved or at least alleviated until someone with a higher skill set can take over like EMS or fire.”

Capt. Kiel Stevenson, who oversees the MPD’s Operations Division, called Markle, Morrison and Birdwell “awesome officers” who excel in all aspects of their job, so it came as no surprise that they would go above and beyond in a situation such as this.

“We’re just kind of excited about their willingness to jump in and do what’s asked of them. They’re all very personable guys that are really good with the community, but they’re all very proactive when (they’re) out trying to do the job,” Stevenson said. “I don’t think it really matters what they’re called upon to do. They’re gonna be fast to react and just there to try to help.”

He also credited the training provided to them and the fact that police officers are mobile as opposed to fire and EMS personnel who respond from a station. Stevenson and his fellow MPD leaders are understandably optimistic about the department’s future and hope the recognition will motivate other officers to run into difficult calls for service without hesitation.

“We ask a lot of our cops and a lot of our officers to go to stuff that most people don’t want to have to deal with and don’t want to have to see, and it’s a struggle. But it’s nice to see them get there quickly, and I think it does kind of set a precedent for the other officers in the department,” he said.

The captain has since spoken to a family member of the employee who expressed strong gratitude to the officers, and Stevenson praised them for doing such work “on a regular basis.” The award recipients urged members of the general public to take a CPR class in the event that they ever find themselves in a similar situation.

“Rely on your training. If you go through training like this, and even if you aren’t a police officer, you know, if you’re working some other job and you have special training, rely on that training. You don’t have to overthink it because (this is) a perfect example of (how) it can be effective,” Birdwell said.

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.