If you had to choose someone who didn’t want a spotlight focused on him or herself, one person who might come to mind is Dianna Bauman.

The 14-year Army civilian employee who currently serves as a program analyst for the 88th Readiness Division’s Directorate of Public Works was recently placed in the spotlight when she helped to save a life.

Bauman was shopping at a local Onalaska, Wis., retailer on Dec. 3 when she heard someone cry out in one of the aisles nearby. “I turned around and saw that a man had fallen from a motorized cart onto the floor,” she recalled. “He had slammed onto the floor and was pinned next to a product display. He had a gash on his head and his glasses were on the floor.”

She ran to the man and found that he wasn’t breathing. “I yelled for help, called for someone to dial 9-1-1 and talked to him,” Bauman said.

When another store customer arrived, she told him that the man needed to be rolled over. “At this point he wasn’t breathing and was turning blue,” she continued.

Bauman took off his mask and opened the man’s jacket so chest compressions could be administered. A store worker brought a defibrillator to use on the man. All the while Bauman spoke to the man to encourage him to respond and to reassure him. Following these efforts, the man started breathing again and began to wake up. He told Bauman his name and that he was 71 years old. When the emergency response crew arrived, one of the technicians asked the man his name. The man said he is sometimes mistaken for Clint Eastwood, but that his name was Ronald. That humor was a good sign.

Bauman credits her quick and steady response to the CPR training she took in the past. However, this was the first time she put the training to the test in a real-world situation.

The first thing that went through Bauman’s mind when she heard the man cry out was “Oh my god, he’s hurt. I’ve got to help,” she said. She also thought, “It’s almost Christmas, you can’t die. You need to be here for your family.”

For Bauman, this was personal, as her father passed away on Dec. 26, 2012.

So often we hear stories of people turning away from providing assistance in this type of situation because they don’t want to get involved. That wasn’t the storyline here. This story had a happy ending.