A Texas law professor suffered a heart attack during a lecture and was saved by his students, including a Navy SEAL veteran who had previously taught CPR.
Michael Maslanka, a 73-year-old associate professor, was teaching at the UNT Dallas College of Law on Oct. 6 when he warned the class that he might not be able to continue. Moments later, he lost consciousness.
“I just saw blackness,” the longtime litigator told the university Tuesday.
His students immediately sprang into action.
Among those who came to Maslanka’s aid was Matthew Melton, a third-year law student and Navy SEAL veteran who had taught CPR during his years in the U.S. Special Forces.
Melton, who was deployed to Bahrain in 2001 and Iraq in 2005, had trained alongside 18 Delta medics and battlefield surgeons who treated wounded service members.
The 45-year-old said his time in combat zones taught him to “always be able and ready to pivot and always be open to what might happen.”
“Students were freaking out. Action needed to be taken,” he told the law school.
Melton, who is now preparing for a legal career, performed three rounds of CPR on Maslanka. But the professor remained in critical danger.
“He came back. Then he went out [of consciousness] again. I was going from chest compressions to forced air [in his mouth]. When I did the first compression, I could hear his ribs break.”
Maslanka cried out when he regained consciousness, but he was disoriented and did not understand where he was, Melton recalled.
“He thought his life was about to be extinguished. He didn’t know where he was,” Melton said.
As Melton, a cybersecurity professional, worked to revive the professor, another student, Sanchez, turned to prayer. She had lost her father to a heart attack two years earlier.
“Everyone was bawling,” she said of the terrifying scene.
Maslanka had suffered ventricular tachycardia, a dangerous abnormal heart rhythm that can prevent the heart from pumping blood effectively.
He eventually regained consciousness and spent 11 days in the hospital. Reflecting on the experience, he credited his students with saving his life and described the ordeal as a defining crossroads.
“I had one that night. Life or death,” he said before praising the students who came to his aid.
“They knew what to do. They organized themselves intuitively. And that saved my life. Let me just be clear,” he told WFAA.
“I would not be here today if my students did not act quickly, thoughtfully and responsibly. I would be dead. They saved my life.”
The episode took on added significance after it emerged that Maslanka appeared 12 years ago in a Texas Bar program called “Mike Maslanka @ your desk,” where he encouraged students to “think like a SEAL.”
He has also written an article titled “Four Life Hacks That Dying (Twice) Taught Me,” which is scheduled for publication in Texas Lawyer.
Maslanka joined UNT Dallas in 2015 and has since returned to the law school, where he teaches ethics and employment law.
