Claudio Alvarado (photo by Charlie Casey/UCD Health)

That’s the great headline on this UC Davis Health story about one of Dick’s saviors, Claudio Alvarado, who sank to his knees beside me on mine seconds after Dick’s collapse in Honolulu Jan. 15.

Claudio—as you may remember if you’ve been following this story—was in line behind us to board Hawaiian Airlines flight 20 bound for Sacramento that day with his partner, Camron Calloway.

“I’m a nurse,” Claudio said to me as I wondered if I should start CPR. I moved aside to let Claudio do what he does professionally as a nurse in the Emergency Department at the UCD Medical Center in Sacramento.

The rest, as they say, is history. (You can read an earlier post about Claudio and Camron here, if you like.)

We are grateful to Charlie Casey, senior public information officer at UCD Health, for interviewing both Dick and Claudio to write this story for the UCDMC community .

I’m also delighted by the fact that as of this summer I can call Claudio a colleague of mine at Sacramento City College where we are both professors. He’s been hired as a full-time nursing professor and starts working with SCC nursing students doing their clinical practice over the summer. In the fall, he’ll teach a full load of classes in addition to his job at UCDMC.

As Dick says of Claudio in this story, “That dude is a hero.”

He so is!