Navy SEAL veteran in the front rows saves his Dallas law professor's life after a heart attack mid-lecture

A 73-year-old law professor at the UNT Dallas College of Law in Dallas, Texas, is crediting his students, led by a Navy SEAL veteran, with saving his life after he collapsed from a heart attack in the middle of class.

Michael Maslanka, a longtime litigator and associate professor, told his students on Oct. 6 that he might not be able to continue the lecture, then blacked out. "I just saw blackness," he told the law school this week.

Third-year student Matthew Melton, 45, a Navy SEAL veteran who taught CPR while in the service and trained with special operations medics, rushed to him. Melton was deployed to Bahrain in 2001 and Iraq in 2005 and now works in cybersecurity while training to become a lawyer.

"Students were freaking out. Action needed to be taken," Melton said. He performed three rounds of CPR. "He came back. Then he went out again. I was going from chest compressions to forced air. When I did the first compression, I could hear his ribs break."

Another student, who lost her father to a heart attack two years ago, prayed as classmates helped. Maslanka had suffered ventricular tachycardia, a dangerous abnormal heart rhythm. He regained consciousness and spent 11 days in the hospital recovering.

He credits the students for saving his life, calling it a crossroads: "Life or death." The story was first told by the law school and Dallas station KDFW and reported by the New York Post.