Michael Maslanka knew something was wrong before he collapsed in front of his law students. His vision was turning blurry, and he told the class he didn’t think he could continue teaching.
Moments later, the 73-year-old professor was on the floor—and the students who had come to learn from him were working to keep him alive.
Among them was Matthew Melton, a Navy SEAL veteran studying at the UNT Dallas College of Law. When Maslanka stopped breathing and had no pulse, Melton began CPR while classmates called for help.
“Students were freaking out. Action needed to be taken,” Melton told the university.
The emergency happened during an evening class on October 8, according to the school. Melton performed three rounds of CPR, but the rescue was not straightforward: Maslanka briefly regained consciousness, then lost it again.
Fellow students Anwar Hannon and Jeff Baza offered assistance, while Daniella Sanchez called 911 and prayed beside her professor. Dallas Fire-Rescue crews arrived, stabilized him and rushed him to the hospital.
For Sanchez, the experience was especially painful. She had lost her father to a heart attack and was now watching another frightening medical emergency unfold in front of her.
Maslanka experienced ventricular tachycardia, a dangerously fast heart rhythm that can prevent the heart from pumping effectively. He later recalled doctors at Baylor Scott & White Heart Hospital preparing to deliver an electrical shock.
“I just saw blackness,” he told the university.
Melton, 45, works in cybersecurity while attending evening classes. Although his military training helped prepare him to respond under pressure, he first learned CPR in high school and later taught it to others.
There was also an unexpected connection to something Maslanka had said years earlier. In a 2014 Texas Bar video, he urged attorneys to “think like a SEAL” and prepare for what could go wrong. More than a decade later, a former SEAL was sitting in his classroom when he needed help.
Maslanka has since returned to teaching, grateful for the students whose quick decisions gave him that opportunity.
“They were calm. They were deliberate and they thought like lawyers,” he told FOX 4. “And I was very proud of them, very proud of them.”
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