When UNT Dallas law professor Michael Maslanka stopped breathing and lost his pulse during an evening class on Oct. 8, it was his own students who kept him alive. One classmate started chest compressions, another called 911, and soon after Dallas Fire Rescue crews arrived to take over — a sequence of events the university now credits with saving the 73-year-old's life.
According to a report from the UNT Dallas newsroom, student Matthew Melton began CPR only after Maslanka stopped breathing and had no pulse. A fourth student, Daniella Sanchez, had already sensed something was wrong and called 911 before going to the professor's side. Dallas Fire Rescue then arrived, stabilized Maslanka, loaded him onto a gurney and rushed him to the hospital, per the same account.
Maslanka spent two days in intensive care, followed by several more in a regular hospital room, before he was discharged and back in front of his class soon after, the university's report states. He has since credited his students with saving his life, a detail also reported by CBS News Texas, which covered the students' actions as part of its coverage of the incident.
Conflicting Accounts of What Happened Medically
Exactly what kind of cardiac event Maslanka experienced is described differently across outlets. He told NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, “It was not a heart attack; it was a V-tach,” referring to ventricular tachycardia, a dangerous heart rhythm disorder. FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth, however, reported that the professor suffered a heart attack during class, framing the students' response as having saved him from that condition. The university's own account does not resolve which description is accurate, and no treating physician's statement is cited by any source confirming a specific diagnosis.
What isn't in dispute is how quickly the students moved once Maslanka went into distress. Melton's compressions and Sanchez's 911 call bought time until paramedics could take over, a sequence the university highlighted in its write-up of the incident.
Why Fast Bystander Action Matters
The speed of that response lines up with what cardiac researchers have found about bystander intervention more broadly. A study of nearly 199,000 witnessed out-of-hospital cardiac arrests between 2013 and 2022, highlighted by the American Heart Association, found that people who received bystander CPR within two minutes had an 81% greater chance of surviving to hospital discharge than those who received no bystander CPR at all. Even CPR started up to 10 minutes later was linked to a 19% higher survival rate compared with no CPR.
The stakes behind those numbers are steep. The American Heart Association estimates that roughly 350,000 cardiac arrests occur outside hospitals in the United States every year, with a survival rate under 10%. Maslanka's own recovery now factors into that broader conversation about why fast action from bystanders can make the difference between life and death.
Professor Wants His Story to Spread CPR Training
Back in the classroom, Maslanka has said he hopes his experience pushes more people to get certified in CPR, according to the university's report. He has framed his recovery as a chance to encourage others to learn the skill that his own students put to use when it mattered most.
