Going the extra mile

She rolled down the window. A bystander had called 911. The man apparently had no pulse, and was turning blue. He might already be dead, Robbins thought, or maybe he was still clinging to life.

She realized there was no time to wait for help, no time to think about what to do. She just had to act, quickly.

Fortunately, she did, and literally made the difference between life and death.

She ordered her children, 8-year-old Emmie and 5-year-old Connor, to stay in the car and grabbed a roll of paper towels.

The injured man was Bob Wright, 73, an avid runner who’d left more than an hour earlier for his daily 5-mile jog and had collapsed.

With the help of a man who also stopped, Robbins turned Wright over. She wiped his bloodied face and used the towel roll as a cushion under the man’s neck.

She heard a gurgling sound.

“By turning him over, I didn’t know if what I was doing was the right thing,” she said. “I just knew I had to do something.”

She got on her hands and knees and performed CPR — something she had learned as a Girl Scout many years earlier but had never done before.

Robbins did one breath, two breaths. Wright gasped. Robbins wasn’t sure if his body was shutting down or if he was fighting to stay alive.

She continued to perform CPR until an ambulance arrived several minutes later. As Wright was lifted inside, his complexion was still pale but turning pink.

That’s when Robbins could have gotten back in the car and driven way. But she didn’t. When a teacher and parent from her children’s school happened by the scene, Robbins had them take her kids the rest of the way. She followed the ambulance to St. Joseph’s Hospital.

With no identification and unable to communicate, Wright was admitted as a “John Doe.” Robbins decided she had to find his family.

She returned to the spot where he’d collapsed, then began knocking on doors. By describing Wright as “an elderly gentleman with bushy eyebrows, a bulbous nose and a thick, beautiful head of hair,” she was able to find his home, just 30 yards away.

Wright’s wife, Phyllis, thought her husband had driven to a nearby senior center that morning. But his truck was still in the driveway.

Then Robbins noticed a photo of Wright on the refrigerator.

She told Phyllis to gather important phone numbers and drove her to the hospital. She accompanied her to see her husband, who was in a coma, in a private room in the ER. She even helped Phyllis call family members.

Why she went to such effort on a stranger’s behalf wasn’t clear to Robbins until after the eventful morning was over.

“I’ve experienced a lot of loss recently,” Robbins said. That includes her job, and her parents’ home in Texas, which washed away in a flood. Two relatives had died unexpectedly during recent months. “Sure, I had a few seconds where I was thinking, ‘Am I doing this right? Is it safe to do this?’ But sometimes I think we are almost more worried about that than the common good of each other.”

Bob Wright would learn that he had more than a head injury. He required quadruple-bypass surgery and spent three weeks in the hospital. Robbins called or visited every day.

Robbins would later realize that on that fateful morning, she’d left her house for the trip to school five minutes earlier than normal. That small difference helped her save a life.

“She’s my angel,” said Wright. “Not many people would have stuck through the entire event like she did. Her instincts and what she did that day is why I am here today.”

2010 AJC HOLIDAY HEROES

These 13 people have been chosen as this year’s AJC Holiday Heroes. Their stories will be told in the Journal-Constitution and on ajc.com over the next two weeks, as well as broadcast on radio station B98.5 FM. Each will receive a $250 gift card donated by the Buckhead Life restaurant group in recognition of their selection.

Sutton Birch, Atlanta

: This 16-year-old Eagle Scout helped middle school boys from a tough Atlanta neighborhood form their own troop.

Melvin Couey, Powder Springs: This 87-year-old Lions Club member has collected more than 35,000 pairs of used glasses for the vision-impaired.

Ted Davis, Atlanta

: He has been cooking lunch for 500 street people every Saturday for 20 years at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Anthony Delgado, Dunwoody: Having battled back from addiction and homelessness, this 54-year-old Dunwoody man is now feeding hundreds of working-poor Atlantans.

Cicley Gay, Marietta: This former single teen mom, now 32, is making sure that young girls develop the confidence they need to make good decisions through involvement in sports.

Norman Grossman, Woodstock: This 80-year-old expanded a small food pantry at his church into a daily service that provides food to Cherokee’s hungry residents.

Rebecca Guinn, Tucker: She gave up her career as a defense attorney to help save abandoned and neglected dogs and cats, creating a nonprofit organization to aid abused and feral animals.

Bonita Johnson, Lithonia: This microbiologist has helped dress more than 3,000 teens for proms and other formal events, and aided hundreds more teens in a program to boost self-esteem.

Greg Lattanzi, Alpharetta: A 19-year-old college sophomore just starting his own life has already saved other lives as a lifeguard, an EMT and bone marrow donor.

Shawna Levy, Alpharetta: She has her own family of three adopted children, but she has also “adopted” residents at many of the area’s nursing and assisted living homes who often have no other visitors.

Branko Radulovacki, Atlanta: This psychiatrist followed a spiritual call to summon people of faith to help Georgia’s mental health care crisis.

Jennifer Robbins, Chamblee: She was taking her children to school when she saw a man collapsed on the side of the road. She helped save his life and inform his family.

Kathy Testa, Marietta: A part-time substitute school media specialist, this 54-year-old mother of two has sent care packages to more than 700 U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.