On the afternoon of April 19, Diego Fernandez-Delgado was driving down South Flamingo Road in Cooper City, Florida, when one of his tires blew. The 65-year-old pulled over to change it, but he had two problems: his phone battery was dead, and his chest had started to hurt.
What he didn’t know was that he was having a heart attack on the side of the road, with no way to call anyone. According to his son, he prayed.
Inside the McDonald’s at that same intersection were three Cooper City High School students, 16-year-olds Logan Royer and Cody Magrone, and 17-year-old Brody Murray, out for a fishing day. They spotted the man struggling with his tire from across the lot and didn’t overthink it.
“We saw him on the side of the road and we were like, let’s go help him,” Magrone told WSVN-TV.
They headed over and got to work on the tire, and that’s when it stopped being about the tire. Royer noticed Fernandez-Delgado wasn’t right. He was breathing heavily, drenched in sweat, gripping his chest, and barely able to speak. At first the teens thought it might be heat stroke. They didn’t wait to find out. One of them called 911 while the others stayed with him.
The 911 call, later released by the Broward Sheriff’s Office, is about as plainspoken as teenage heroism gets.
“There’s an old guy on the side of the road,” one of them told the dispatcher. “We helped him change his tire and he does not feel good at all.”
They gave their location near Flamingo and Stirling, described the situation, followed the dispatcher’s instructions, and crucially did not leave him alone. Bodycam footage from the responding deputy captures the next part: an officer leaning in to ask, “Sir, you okay? Your chest hurt?” before paramedics moved him.
Photo credit: Broward Sheriff’s Office
He was taken to Memorial Hospital West, where doctors confirmed he’d had a heart attack, the kind of event where the gap between help now and help 20 minutes later is the gap that matters. First responders said the teens’ quick action likely saved his life.
Fernandez-Delgado came home after several procedures. A few weeks later, on May 12, he was well enough to attend a Cooper City recognition ceremony where the three boys received a proclamation and a standing ovation, and where he got to thank them in person for the first time.
Speaking to WSVN-TV in Spanish, he said the pain that day had been so severe he was close to passing out.
“God didn’t send angels with wings,” his son, Cristian Fernandez, said. “He sent those boys.”
The boys themselves were pretty unbothered by the hero framing.
“It doesn’t hurt to stop to help someone out at all,” Royer said. “Anyone, just help them out. It can go a long way.”
All three told WSVN-TV they’re now thinking about careers as first responders, which, given how they handled their first emergency, seems like a reasonable read of their own aptitude.
