He went down at Hayward Field. Months later, he has two words.

QuickTake:

Thanks to fast-acting EMTs, Dan Pritchard survived a cardiac arrest at the NCAA Track and Field Championships. Months later, he reunited with the team to thank them in person — a meeting that helped highlight the importance of rapid response to cardiac arrest.

“Thank you.” Those were the words Dan Pritchard had been trying to deliver in person to the first responders who kept him alive.

He had his chance Wednesday, Nov. 12, at a Eugene Springfield Fire station, nearly four months after Pritchard went into cardiac arrest during the 2025 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

The University of Oregon had contracted Emergency Medical Technicians, or EMTs, and paramedics with Eugene Springfield Fire for the event. Among them were Mackenzie Galick, Kyle Morris, Beatriz Delos Reyes, Erez Steinberg and Raleigh Taylor. They were on standby June 14 at Hayward Field, watching the meet, when they saw Pritchard, a volunteer, collapse.

The stadium fell silent as the race between athletes shifted to Pritchard’s race against time.

During cardiac arrest, when the heart stops beating, the risk of brain damage rises and survival rates drop with each passing minute.

The EMTs began chest compressions. They secured a mechanical CPR device to his chest and pushed a gurney as fast as they could. En route to PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend, Pritchard regained consciousness, in pain from the compressions, so the EMTs sedated him.

The crew followed protocol, trying to gather basic information, because they didn’t know who he was. They asked for his birthday.

“He gave us his month and year, and then we said, ‘what year?’ And he chimed back with ‘every year,’” Taylor recalled. “That’s when we knew he was probably going to be OK.”

Dan Pritchard thanks the first responders who were on the scene when he suffered cardiac arrest in June at Hayward Field, Nov. 12, 2025. Credit: Isaac Wasserman / Lookout Eugene-Springfield / Catchlight / RFA

Cardiac arrest calls are common — a public health issue that demands a rapid response. Since last November, Eugene Springfield Fire has responded to more than 600, averaging about 56 a month.

More than half of people who experience cardiac arrest don’t survive, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

High-quality CPR within the first 10 minutes can dramatically improve the chances of survival, which was the case for Pritchard. His nurse, Kat Fennimore, said he was awake, and still cracking jokes, when he reached the emergency room.

“Often when people are in cardiac arrest, they are not awake when they get to the ER,” she said. “One reason he woke up is because he had such good compressions.”

Fennimore also met Pritchard on Wednesday at the reunion, a gathering he had been working to organize since his recovery in the summer.

“[Meeting the EMTs] is something I’ve wanted to do, and I was just never able to find out who the crew was,” he said.

Pritchard partnered with PeaceHealth and Eugene’s HeartSafe Community initiative, so that he could finally deliver his heartfelt message face-to-face.

“You guys are saving lives,” he said. “I just want to say thank you.”

This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Kat Fennimore’s last name.