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Alert AZ Officers May Have Saved Life of Waitress

"She was totally different than what we normally deal with," said Officer Tony. "You just could see the way she was walking around, and it was just totally off. At one point, we saw her actually sit down and started complaining about some pain in her back."

July 14, 2021
2 min to read


Phoenix police officers may have saved the life of a waitress at their favorite breakfast place last week when he noticed she appeared to be having a medical emergency.

Ryan Ladden, the district manager of all 5 & Diner locations in the Valley, told AZ Family the officers stopped by the  Phoenix location on July 8 for some breakfast.

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"The officers came in, as usual, for their break. My employee greeted them and sat them. They noticed something off about her and recognized that it might be medical. She is very stubborn, and they called medical to check her out just to be safe. EMT showed up and determined she needed to be transported. It turns out she had fluid around her heart, and doctors told her that if it wasn't taken care of in 24 hrs, she might have died," Ladden explained.

"We never thought it would be possible that ordering coffee or a chicken fried steak would actually save somebody's life," said Officer Tony. Tony said he comes to the 5 & Diner regularly and has made friends with the waitresses who serve him, which is why he noticed something was off with his server.

"She was totally different than what we normally deal with," said Tony. "You just could see the way she was walking around, and it was just totally off. At one point, we saw her actually sit down and started complaining about some pain in her back." 

The waitress is doing much better and has returned to work. She did not want to be identified in the story.

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