PLEASANT GROVE — A woman was revived by a police dispatcher Tuesday after she stopped breathing while in a holding room at the Pleasant Grove police department.

The woman, 29, later admitted to "taking" several balloons of heroin just before Pleasant Grove police officers responded to a domestic violence call in Lindon at about 11:30 a.m., said police Capt. Cody Cullimore.

Cullimore said police were unaware of the woman's condition when they arrested her and transported her to the Pleasant Grove Public Safety Building where she was searched and placed in a holding room across the hall from the dispatch center.

The woman asked dispatchers for a drink of water at about 12:30 p.m. and they provided her with a cup of water. They said the woman sat on a couch in the holding room for about five minutes before taking a small drink and lying down.

A few minutes later, dispatchers and other city workers noticed that the woman appeared to have stopped breathing, Cullimore said.

Marie Hardman, a dispatcher who doubles as an emergency medical technician with the city's volunteer ambulance association, rushed into the room and held the woman's head back and opened an airway, which allowed the woman to take some large, gasping breaths.

"She probably saved this lady's life," Cullimore said.

A member of the city's emergency team was in the parking lot when he got the call and responded with oxygen and Naloxone, also known as Narcan, a drug designed to counteract the effects of narcotics. Cullimore said the woman was given an injection of Narcan and immediately regained consciousness. She was taken to American Fork Hospital, where she was in fair and stable condition Tuesday evening, hospital spokesperson Lana Nelson said.

Cullimore said the woman was cited in connection with the domestic violence call and would be free to go home when released from the hospital.

"Nobody knew she had any heroin on board," Cullimore said. "No drugs were found in the search."

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However, he said the woman told police after she was revived that she had taken several balloons of heroin. Police believed she swallowed the bags, but Cullimore said investigators aren't sure how the drugs got into her system.

He is certain that the dispatchers averted a disaster. The holding rooms are located across a four-foot hallway from the dispatch center so dispatchers can keep an eye on prisoners through Plexiglas windows.

"They did a very good job," Cullimore said. "I'm glad we're talking about it this way instead of about someone dying in our holding cell."


E-mail: twalch@desnews.com

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