Farmer meets deputy who saved his life during heart attack

A man given a second chance at life meets the man who saved his life.

Barton County farmer Arnold Spencer was filled with joy on Thursday.

“I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart,” he said.

On his day off from the Newton County Sheriff’s Office, Sergeant Nick Booe traveled to rural Barton County to see Spencer for the first time since May 15.

While sitting at the intersection of 32nd Street and Connecticut Avenue in Joplin, Missouri, Sergeant Booe saw something wrong.

“I thought it was just another motorist having issues with their car,” Booe said.

He quickly realized Spencer was having a medical emergency behind the wheel of his car.

“I’ve got to get the vehicle stopped and get him out and render some aid,” Booe said.

Spencer was having a heart attack.

“The window was down, so I was able to reach through and unlock the door and get in there and put my foot on the brake. If you watch the video, you hear me say, ‘break, break, break.’ I’m doing that because if he was to wake up, I don’t want him thinking I’m some guy stealing his car, so I’m repeating what I’m doing, that way if he came to, he would know what I was trying to do,” Booe said.

He then pulled an unconscious Spencer out of the driver’s seat and performed CPR until additional help arrived.

“I’ve done CPR before on people, but nothing to this extent,” Booe said.

After two weeks in the hospital, Spencer made a full recovery and says he’s alive today because of who a higher power put in the right place at the right time.

“I was a very lucky man to have the people around me at that time,” he said.

“I think the lord put me at that intersection,” Booe said.

“We continue to say the officer was put there by God. The right place at the right time,” Susie Johnson, Spencer’s daughter, said.

“That guy is my guardian angel. I’ve said it a hundred thousand times: he is my guardian angel. God sent him there,” Spencer said.

Booe is grateful he could help, but is quick to pass the title of “hero” to others.

“To me, the people I work with every day, the people on my team, they’re the heroes. I’m just there working with them,” he said.

And while this is their first meeting, Spencer says it won’t be their last.

“I am going to take him out to dinner. Him and his wife both,” he said.