His Daughters Watched Him Fight to Save a Stranger’s Life

Published on August 04, 2026

Charlotte Fire Battalion Chief John Lipcsak performed CPR on a man while vacationing with his family in Virginia Beach. The man survived and is scheduled to be released from the hospital Thursday.

By Kevin Campbell, Charlotte Fire

The call that saved a man’s life did not come over a radio.

It came from a young volleyball player who approached Battalion Chief John Lipcsak’s dinner table and said someone outside appeared to be having a medical emergency.

Lipcsak was hundreds of miles from Charlotte, spending the evening with his wife and two daughters during a family trip to Virginia Beach. There was no fire engine waiting outside, no equipment at his side and no crew responding with him.

But someone needed help.

Lipcsak got up from the table.

Within minutes, his hands were pressing against a stranger’s chest as his daughters watched their father perform CPR for the first time.

The man had no pulse. An automated external defibrillator delivered a shock. Lipcsak continued compressions until Virginia Beach firefighters and paramedics had enough personnel to take over.

Before the man was placed into an ambulance, responders found a strong pulse at his wrist.

The man survived and is scheduled to be released from the hospital Thursday.

“You always try to make a difference in someone’s life,” Lipcsak said. “I did what I had to do.”

John and Anna-Yates Lipcsak are pictured with daughters Emma-Yates, 14, and Mary-Parks, 11. The girls had heard about their father’s work throughout their lives, but the Virginia Beach emergency was the first time they watched him perform CPR. Photo courtesy of the Lipcsak family.

Lipcsak currently oversees Charlotte Fire’s Public Information Office and Community Outreach, an assignment that often puts him behind the scenes helping tell the stories of other firefighters and their service to the community.

On July 13, the story became his.

Lipcsak was in Virginia Beach with his wife, Anna-Yates, and their daughters for the national beach volleyball finals. The tournament marked the conclusion of a season that takes the family to competitions across North Carolina before ending at the coast each July.

That evening, the Lipcsaks joined several other volleyball families for dinner near the oceanfront boardwalk.

They had just ordered their food when one of the young players approached the table. She said she had heard people talking about someone outside having a medical problem.

The girl walked away, then returned and repeated what she had heard.

Lipcsak went outside to see whether someone needed help.

He saw a man sitting in a rocking chair about 25 feet down the sidewalk.

“I could obviously tell from a distance that, from his appearance, he did not appear well,” Lipcsak said.

He climbed over a low wall separating the restaurant patio from the walkway and approached the man.

Lipcsak performed a sternum rub, applying firm pressure to the center of the man’s chest in an attempt to get a response.

“He took one gasping breath,” Lipcsak said. “I got no further response from him.”

The man was cold and clammy. Lipcsak checked for a pulse but could not find one.

With help from another bystander, he lowered the man from the chair to the ground and checked again.

“There was still no pulse, so I began CPR,” Lipcsak said.

He directed someone nearby to find an automated external defibrillator, then began the repeated chest compressions needed to keep blood moving through the man’s body.

Virginia Beach lifeguards soon arrived on all-terrain vehicles carrying an AED. They placed the pads on the man’s chest as Lipcsak completed his first round of CPR.

The device detected a shockable heart rhythm.

One shock was delivered.

Lipcsak immediately resumed compressions.

“It was just a whirlwind of action going on,” he said. “People running everywhere, people trying to see what was going on.”

On-scene images show Battalion Chief John Lipcsak performing CPR as Virginia Beach lifeguards and first responders arrive to assist. The man was transported with a pulse and survived.

Virginia Beach police officers arrived, followed by firefighters and paramedics. Lipcsak briefly turned CPR over to an arriving firefighter but remained at the man’s side.

He soon stepped back in and continued compressions.

Lipcsak kept going until paramedics had enough personnel and equipment in place to manage the resuscitation.

Before the man was moved onto a stretcher, responders checked for a pulse.

This time, they found one at his wrist.

“For him to have a radial pulse meant that he had a strong pulse,” Lipcsak said.

A radial pulse indicated that the man’s heart was once again circulating blood strongly enough for responders to feel it near the surface of his wrist.

The man was transported to a hospital, leaving Lipcsak and his family without knowing what would happen next.

They knew he had a pulse when he entered the ambulance. They did not know whether that pulse would hold or whether he would survive the hours and days that followed.

Then came the news they had hoped to receive.

The man survived.

He had lived through the medical emergency, the loss of his pulse and the resuscitation on the boardwalk. He is now expected to leave the hospital Thursday.

For Lipcsak, the outcome brought greater meaning to an evening that already carried an emotional weight unlike most calls in his career.

His daughters had watched everything.

“They hear about it, but they never get to see it,” he said.

Lipcsak became emotional as he spoke about Emma-Yates and Mary-Parks watching him perform CPR.

“It hit different,” he said.

Lipcsak said the emergency felt different from the calls he has handled on duty because he was without his crew and his daughters were watching from only a few feet away.

On duty, Lipcsak has responded to emergencies as part of a trained team. Firefighters arrive with apparatus, medical equipment and assigned responsibilities. Even in the middle of confusion and urgency, there is a system surrounding them.

At the restaurant, Lipcsak initially had only his training and the willingness of strangers to follow his instructions.

His family stood nearby.

The two girls who had grown up hearing about their father’s work were suddenly watching him kneel over a man without a pulse and fight to keep him alive.

Anna-Yates Lipcsak followed her husband outside after realizing he was not returning to the table.

By the time she reached the patio area, he had lowered the man to the ground and was performing CPR.

She understood the realities of her husband’s profession. She knew he had responded to medical emergencies, fires and other moments that changed lives without warning.

But she had rarely witnessed him perform the work firsthand.

“It was interesting to watch him do what he does on a daily basis,” she said.

The boardwalk was crowded, and more people gathered as lifeguards, police officers, firefighters and paramedics arrived.

Still, Anna-Yates said her husband appeared calm and in control.

“I don’t know if it was just watching him work and seeing how calm he was,” she said. “He was doing what he was supposed to do, and people seemed reassured because he had taken over the scene.”

Mary-Parks, the couple’s younger daughter, had questions afterward. Emma-Yates watched closely but said less about what she had seen.

Their father hopes the experience showed both girls something beyond the frightening image of a stranger lying motionless on the ground.

He hopes they remember the importance of helping when someone else cannot help themselves.

“Hopefully, it delivers a positive to help people,” Lipcsak said.

Lipcsak hopes his daughters will remember the emergency not only for what they witnessed, but for the importance of stepping forward when another person needs help.

Fire Chief Reginald Johnson said Lipcsak’s actions reflect the commitment Charlotte firefighters carry with them whether they are on duty or away from home.

“John was spending time with his family when another family suddenly needed him,” Johnson said. “He stepped forward, used his training and helped save a man’s life. His daughters witnessed what service looks like in its most personal form, and they should be incredibly proud of their father.”

For Lipcsak, the instinct to step forward began long before he joined Charlotte Fire.

He grew up in Wendell, about 15 miles east of Raleigh, where he heard the community fire whistle and watched volunteer firefighters leave their homes to respond to emergencies.

“It excites every little kid,” Lipcsak said. “Some people, it just never leaves.”

He joined the Wendell Fire Department as a volunteer when he turned 18.

Sports had given him a sense of camaraderie, teamwork and shared accomplishment. When his time as an athlete ended, the fire service filled that space.

“It gave me the same camaraderie that sports had always given me with the team atmosphere and completing the task and accomplishing goals,” Lipcsak said. “It fulfilled that need once sports were over.”

He later moved to Charlotte to attend UNC Charlotte’s fire safety engineering program. He graduated in May 2006 and entered Charlotte Fire Recruit Class 75 in January 2007.

Lipcsak entered Charlotte Fire Recruit Class 75 in 2007 and has served the department in several assignments during nearly two decades with Charlotte Fire.

Over nearly two decades, Lipcsak has responded to emergencies, led firefighters and served Charlotte in several assignments.

Today, as the battalion chief overseeing Public Information and Community Outreach, he helps connect residents with Charlotte Fire, coordinate public safety messaging and share the work firefighters perform throughout the city.

Lipcsak oversees Charlotte Fire’s Public Information Office and Community Outreach, where he helps communicate the work of firefighters and connect the department with the community.

His current assignment does not place him on a fire engine each day. It has not changed the instincts developed across his career.

Neither has time diminished the rush that comes when he knows someone is in trouble.

“It still hits,” Lipcsak said. “It’s still the same as it was day one. I might not be able to physically do it the same, but it’s still the same as day one.”

That evening in Virginia Beach, there was little time to think.

The report reached his table. He saw the man. He recognized the signs of a life-threatening emergency and began acting.

“It’s our programming,” Lipcsak said. “We don’t know how not to help.”

A battalion chief’s helmet and turnout gear represent a career built on preparation, leadership and the responsibility to act when someone’s life is at risk.

After the ambulance left, Lipcsak returned to the restaurant with his family.

They sat back down and tried to continue the dinner that had been interrupted only minutes earlier.

Restaurant employees and customers approached the table. Some had watched the rescue unfold. Others had heard what happened. One after another, they thanked him.

The attention made Lipcsak uncomfortable.

To him, the decision had been simple. A man needed help, and Lipcsak knew what to do.

“It’s what we do,” he said. “It’s another day.”

For everyone else who witnessed it, the moment was far from ordinary.

“For him, it’s a normal thing,” Anna-Yates said. “For 90% of the population, it’s a traumatic event.”

She watched people who had never met her husband approach him with gratitude. She also watched him deflect the attention and return to his family.

“He just stepped right in and took over the scene,” she said. “It was something else to see the people who obviously had no clue who he was come up and thank him for what he did.”

Lipcsak has spent much of his current assignment helping tell the stories of other Charlotte firefighters. After an unexpected emergency during a family trip, the story was his.

Firefighters’ families understand the profession through missed holidays, long shifts and stories shared after difficult calls.

They know their loved ones move toward emergencies while others move away.

But they do not always see that service unfold in front of them.

On the Virginia Beach boardwalk, Emma-Yates and Mary-Parks did.

They watched their father leave the dinner table. They watched him climb over a wall and approach a stranger who was cold, clammy and without a pulse.

They watched him press against the man’s chest again and again.

They watched responders deliver a shock and their father immediately return to CPR.

Then they watched the man leave in an ambulance with a pulse.

Days later, the family learned the ending that was not guaranteed when Lipcsak first stepped outside.

The stranger their father fought to save was alive. Soon, he would leave the hospital and return to his own family.

Lipcsak does not describe himself as a hero. He does not view the decision to help as extraordinary.

He sees it as the responsibility that comes with knowing what to do when another person’s life depends on it.

“You always try to make a difference in someone’s life,” Lipcsak said. “I did what I had to do.”

This time, the difference was a life.