A Dorchester woman who just started training in life-saving measures through her local community center, swung into action last month to save the life of a stricken health worker. Leslie Ann Milton, 69, was at the right place at the right moment on June 3 when Jonathan Hines, who was visiting her sister’s home on Capen Street in his role as a personal care attendant, went into cardiac arrest.

“I believe God puts everyone and everything in a certain place for a certain purpose,” said Milton, who has lived on Capen Street for 52 years. “I was getting ready to leave that day and just didn’t for some reason. We were telling Jonathan to go home early, and he just didn’t. We were all in the right place for this to happen the way it did.”

Leslie Ann was just stepping out the door when she heard an urgent call for help from her sister’s residence upstairs. “Jonathan was in full cardiac arrest on the floor,” Milton recalled. “He was really gone. It was serious. I got down and began to perform CPR and called 9-1-1. Then we called his cousin, Sandra Hines, and she came over from across the street…I call it ‘pumping and praying with CPR’ because that’s all I was doing.

“It seemed like it took hours before the ambulance got there, but when they got there, they told me that if I hadn’t started CPR, he would not have made it,” she said.

Jonathan Hines left the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital last week. He has a long road ahead of him, but will recover, according to his family. Sandra Hines, who assisted in saving her cousin’s life, is grateful that Milton knew what to do in the emergency and could show her what to do to help.

“I got in and saw him on the floor, and it was shocking,” she said. “I was lost. I was in a fog and didn’t know what to do. I saw Leslie doing CPR and I knew she was going to need to be relieved because she was going so long.

“I had to push her out of the way because she wanted to keep going. I asked her what to do and she showed me how to do the compressions right there.”

Milton learned CPR via the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), a national program that trains volunteers to assist the city with response efforts in an emergency or at large-scale event. Milton was one of a group of Boston seniors who joined a CERT class starting in April. It seems now to have been a divine decision, Milton told The Reporter.

“I think everyone should have CERT training…In a situation like that, the panic hits you and then you think about what you learned and the adrenaline kicks in because you are trying to save someone you care about – and that helps you focus,” she said.

Senior citizens at the Mildred Avenue Senior Drop-in started with their CERT training back in April, with city program manager Nancy Smith, far right, helping seniors sign up. Milton, shown next to Smith, later used her training to save the life of a friend at her Capen Street home. Seth Daniel photo

Nancy Smith, program manager at the Boston Office of Emergency Management, helped to bring the program back to train civilians for emergency situations, responding to a call coming particularly from senior citizens across the city. In April, she began training at the Bolling Building with 60 residents on Saturdays, but she also came out and set up online training for the Mildred Avenue Senior Drop-in every Tuesday for four hours - teaching about six or seven residents. Milton and her daughter, Eugenia Wright, trained at the Bolling Building through the spring, and all 60 participates graduated on July 9 with a featured presentation to Milton for her life-saving efforts.

“We are so excited from the city of Boston to be joining the rest of big cities with a CERT team,” said Smith. “We often never talk about the economic value of volunteers to programs and projects, but I think it is also so important to applaud the good person spirit to share their time… Now they are ready to support the city of Boston during planned and unplanned events.”

Milton has been invited to travel to Washington, D.C. later this month to give a presentation at a national conference to hammer home the importance of CERT training for senior citizens.

“I don’t know what I’ll say there, but I’m psyched,” she said. “I will say this: I think CPR is something that someone in each household should always know.”

To learn more about the CERT program, go online to boston.gov/departments/emergency-management/boston-cert