HOMER, Ill. (WCIA) — A crew of volunteer firefighters in one Central Illinois village is receiving honors for saving a man’s life, showing how ordinary people willing to give their time can make an extraordinary difference.

The firefighters of the Homer Fire Protection District were doing a routine training exercise when an emergency call stopped them in their tracks. These volunteers hopped straight into their truck and went to the scene.

“When we got there, he was in his living room and in the middle of doing a patient assessment, he actually suffered a cardiac event,” said Lieutenant Trae King.

King said this is a type of call they don’t see every day.

“You get a lot of calls for different medical events, you get some chest pain calls,” King said. “Fortunately, a lot of them turn out to not be major events, but the ones that are, there are few and far between.”

Despite not having much live experience in this area, they train for this moment, and the crew knew what to do immediately.

“At that point, we were able to immediately start CPR and get our Lucas device out to provide good quality compressions,” King said.

And now, the man has made a full recovery.

The Homer Fire Protection District is made up of all volunteers. One of them, Larry O’Neal, also runs a landscaping business.

“Felt pretty good, but we don’t do it for the glory of being able to say we saved that person’s life,” O’Neal said. “We signed up to help people, and if we’re able to help and it has a great outcome, that’s amazing.”

The district hosted a ceremony honoring the first responders involved. It also gave them a chance to reconnect with the man, who has a unique connection to the department.

“He was actually on our department for 33 years and he was the Fire Chief for a handful of those years,” O’Neal said. “We didn’t know that until after the call.”

For King, that was his favorite part.

“It was really a blessing to get to talk to somebody that had a medical event like that,” King said. “We were actually able to talk to him and shake his hand and see how he was doing, and that’s not something we get too often. But in any event that it happens, it’s really nice.”

The team of six firefighters each received challenge coins and certificates for what they did. They said they’ll keep training weekly to sharpen their skills in the event this happens again.