A Jersey Shore Area Senior High School student is being honored by local authorities after he and other students quickly came to the aid of a fellow student suffering a medical emergency.

It was just like any other normal day in the shop class led by Career and Technical Education Teacher Izak Turner on March 27, said 17-year-old Shawn Stabley.

“We didn’t have anything to do that day, so we normally sit around the table and talk,” he said.

A friend of his got up and laid under a table in the room, where Stabley said he would typically take a 20 to 30 minute nap. Thinking nothing of it, Stabley left the area for roughly three minutes, he said.

“I came back and he was just flopping around and stiff as a board,” Stabley, who was the first to notice the student was suffering a seizure, said.

He and several other students immediately sprang into action.

“Me and a couple other kids grabbed him and pulled him out from under the table so he wasn’t hitting his head, and then I proceeded to roll him over onto his side, while two of the other classmates ran down to get the nurse, and Mr. Turner proceeded to call 911,” Stabley, a junior at the school, said.

His quick response and knowledge of how to address the crisis came from training he received while in the Boy Scouts, Stabley explained.

“I was in Boy Scouts for, I don’t even remember how long, and I got all my first aid merit badges and stuff through them, so the Boy Scouts trained me on all that,” he said.

“What I kept hearing from staff who responded is how well the students in the room, including Shawn and the teacher, handled the situation,” Superintendent Brian Ulmer said, calling it a “divide and conquer” strategy.

“Shawn was taking care of his friend, Mr. Turner immediately called 911, someone called the office, someone actually called the mother of the student who was seizing. They did a great job getting everything handled really well. The principal said to me that he was probably there in under a couple minutes, and by that point, they had already called 911, and already had him kind of comfortable,” Ulmer said.

“They all did an amazing job making sure that the situation was handled very well,” he said.

“Mr. Turner is a fairly new teacher to us, and he also did a good job, not only handling it, but from what I’ve been told, directing the students, like you do this and you do this,” Ulmer said.

“Not only did the students step in and do it, but everybody understood the severity of the situation and did their job and was able to make it a really positive outcome,” the superintendent said.

“It’s just another example of the fact that we have really good kids at Jersey Shore that have character, and are stand up people and Shawn’s another example of that,” Ulmer said.

“We’re proud of what they do every day, just coming here and being the best person they can be, and they just keep showing it to us over and over again,” he said.

Ulmer added that the district’s staff and faculty are all seizure-trained.

“I think that speaks to what we do here at Jersey Shore, just to make sure that everybody understands our students are important,” he said.

The student who suffered the seizure cannot be named for privacy reasons, but has returned to class, Ulmer and Stabley confirmed.

For his efforts, Stabley was awarded a Certificate of Appreciation by the Lycoming Regional Police Department.

“Upon arrival, officers found that Stabley had swiftly taken action to assist the patient, a fellow student, by creating a safe environment and protecting the individual,” a post to crimewatch.com read.

“Stabley’s prompt and selfless actions played a crucial role in ensuring the student’s safety until medical professionals arrived,” it continued.

“His bravery and quick thinking are a testament to his character, and SRO (Lauren) Lucas and Chief Kriner are honored to recognize his efforts with a Certificate of Appreciation,” the post said, expressing their gratitude for his “heroic actions” and “his commitment to the well-being of his fellow student.”

While Stabley doesn’t foresee a career in the medical field in his future, he is grateful that he has the knowledge to respond to such situations.

“I thought about it when I was really young, like in middle school, and that’s what made me get into Boy Scouts, because it would help through the field, but then I just kind of veered away from it. But I am glad I did have the training, even though I thought I would never use it,” he said.