A Texas law professor who suffered a heart attack while teaching survived after his students rushed to help, with a Navy SEAL veteran leading the effort to keep him alive.

Michael Maslanka, an associate professor at the UNT Dallas College of Law, has credited their quick response with saving his life, as reported by The New York Post.

Maslanka, 73, was delivering a lecture on Oct. 6 when he warned his students that he might not be able to continue. Moments later, the longtime litigator suddenly blacked out in front of the class.

“I just saw blackness,” Maslanka told the university Tuesday. His students were left facing a frightening medical emergency with their professor unconscious before them.

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Among those who immediately responded was Matthew Melton, a third-year law student and Navy SEAL veteran. Melton had previously taught CPR classes while serving in the US Special Forces, giving him experience that proved crucial inside the classroom.

Melton, 45, had been deployed to Bahrain in 2001 and Iraq in 2005. He also trained with the 18 Delta medics and field surgeons who worked to save lives on the battlefield.

Those experiences in conflict zones taught Melton to “always be able and ready to pivot and always be open to what might happen.” When Maslanka collapsed, the veteran recognized that waiting was not an option.

“Students were freaking out. Action needed to be taken,” Melton told the law school. He began CPR and performed three rounds, but the professor remained in danger.

“He came back. Then he went out again. I was going from chest compressions to forced air. When I did the first compression, I could hear his ribs break.”

Maslanka shouted after regaining consciousness, but Melton said the professor did not understand where he was. “He thought his life was about to be extinguished. He didn’t know where he was,” Melton said.

While Melton, who also works as a cybersecurity professional, continued helping the professor, Sanchez turned to prayer. Sanchez had lost her father to a heart attack two years earlier and described an emotional scene inside the classroom.

“Everyone was bawling,” Sanchez said of the ordeal. Despite the panic surrounding them, the students continued responding while Maslanka fought to survive.

Maslanka experienced ventricular tachycardia, an abnormal heart rhythm in which the upper and lower chambers of the heart go out of sync. He eventually regained consciousness and spent 11 days recovering in the hospital.

The professor later compared his experience with reaching a crossroads between survival and death. “I had one that night. Life or death,” he said before praising the students whose actions kept him alive.

“They knew what to do. They organized themselves intuitively. And that saved my life. Let me just be clear,” Maslanka told WFAA. His account put the credit squarely on the students who responded in the classroom.

“I would not be here today if my students did not act quickly, thoughtfully and responsibly. I would be dead. They saved my life.”

The rescue carried a striking connection to advice Maslanka had given years earlier. Twelve years ago, he appeared in a Texas Bar program titled “Mike Maslanka @ your desk,” where he encouraged students to “think like a SEAL.”

Maslanka has also written an article titled “Four Life Hacks That Dying (Twice) Taught Me.” The piece is scheduled to be published in the Texas Lawyer publication.

Maslanka first joined the university in 2015. Following his hospitalization and recovery, he returned to the law college, where he is teaching ethics and employment law after the students he instructed became the people who saved him.