Earlier this month at the Presque Isle Half-Marathon, a runner suffered a cardiac arrest in the middle of the race. And if it wasn't for the incredible people around him, many of them local nurses, including Kara Coleman's best friend, who she was running with, he certainly wouldn't be here today.

I was able to catch up with Greg Woodman, who now says, "Erie has my heart."

For Greg Woodman of State College, the Presque Isle Half Marathon on July 16th was a chance to not only run alongside his two sons, but also to feel a sense of normalcy, just six days after losing his own father.

"Because of my dad and that last couple of weeks, I didn't train well and didn't eat well or sleep well, so I knew it was gonna feel gonna be a struggle to get through the 13.1 miles," Woodman said.

But what he didn't expect was a life-altering run. Near mile 4 of the course, Woodman, a 65-year-old experienced runner, collapsed. He was in cardiac arrest.

"I was in kind of a pack of people and I thought I should go over to the right side of the road if I would collapse," Woodman said.

And what happened next would change the course of his life. Piecing together accounts from different sources, Woodman thinks about 11 different runners who stopped to render aid.

"I was able to see off on the side someone had just started compressions," said Mikaela Hess, an ER nurse at Hamot. "I asked if anyone was a nurse or doctor, said I was a nurse and offered my help."

Runners like Hess, and Tori Baldwin, an Erie native and ER nurse now living in Denver, who also happens to be Coleman's best friend, jumped into action.

"A few of the nurses that helped were all from different areas and never worked in the same hospital setting, but the fact that we could all jump in and give him the best care until EMS arrived is just incredible," Hess said.

"They worked together, they were counting out, it just seems like total strangers came together, banded together to save a fellow human being. It's amazing to me," Hess said.

Doctors at UPMC Hamot later told Woodman his heart had stopped for six minutes. He had no heartbeat, other than the beats from the hands of those heroic runners.

"The chances of surviving a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital are only about 10%, especially for a 65-year-old," Woodman said. "I was blessed and it was a miracle that these heroic people swept in so quickly. The quality care preserved my brain capacity and kept me alive."

Woodman says doctors have told him he can run again, and he's hoping to return to Erie next year to run alongside those who gave him a second chance.

"I'd love to shake their hand, maybe start out the race with a few of them, that would be wonderful," Woodman said. "But more than that, I want to make them proud that I do something impactful with this second chance."

Doctors say the chances of surviving a cardiac arrest outside a hospital are only about 10%. And if Greg was alone, say, on a training run, there likely would have been a very different outcome.