It was a routine traffic stop.

ISU Police Officer Derek Doebel, just one month out of the academy, and Sgt. Joel Swanson, a 24-year veteran of the department, had just pulled over a vehicle for speeding Saturday morning at Ash Avenue and Mortensen Road.

Doebel, a trainee, approached the vehicle and asked for identification from the driver while Swanson stayed back and observed his partner.

As Doebel walked back from the vehicle, Swanson yelled, “We have a medical!”

Swanson, with medical training as a first responder, noticed a vehicle moving southbound approaching the squad car. He noticed the car swerving in and out of his lane and the driver slumped over, his head on the side window.

“Your instincts kick in, and you know what to do,” Swanson said. “It’s like you’re on autopilot.”

Swanson and Doebel ran from their vehicle to the victim’s car. Swanson was able to pull the victim from the car and lay him on the ground.

The victim was a 73-year-old male from Urbandale. The name of the victim was not be released by ISU Police. There were no other passengers in the vehicle.

The officers checked for a pulse and found the man unresponsive.

Swanson opened the victim’s shirt and began cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Doebel ran to his car to pull out a small red bag carrying an Automated External Defibrillation system from the truck of the squad car.

The bag contains a machine with pads that stick to the victim’s chest, distributing small amounts of electric current to the heart.

“We gave three shocks and three cycles of CPR,” Swanson said.

The officers called for the fire department and Mary Greeley Medical Center to respond.

ISU Police Capt. Gene Deisinger said all marked squad cars are equipped with the defibrillator.

“Since we implemented the AED [in all cars] in the spring of 2002, this is the first time they were used [in an emergency situation],” Deisinger said.

The AED units cost anywhere between $3,000 to $5,000 per unit, Swanson said. He said the Government of the Student Body helped finance the cost of the machines in 2002.

Swanson is the leading medical trainer on the ISU Police department and advocated installing the units into every marked squad car.

“It just couldn’t have gone much better,” Deisinger said.