Deputy Sheriff Recalls Helping With Scott Steiner Medical Scare At 2020 TNA Event

Scott Steiner had a serious health scare at TNA’s TV tapings in March of 2020, and deputy sheriff Chris Johnson recently recalled helping save Steiner during the incident. Steiner was hospitalized after the incident at the taping and underwent a heart procedure. Johnson, who was at the taping, appeared on Talk’n Shop and spoke about walking in on the medical episode and helping save his life. You can see the highlights below (per Fightful):

On finding Steiner backstage: “Well, I was standing at the curtain, and I was watching — Scott was in the ring doing his promo because at the time, they were gonna do a TNA, I guess, old school versus Impact storyline. They had a lot of the originals there… So, Scott’s out there and he’s cutting his promo and he’s fired up as always, and he comes to the back and he did nothing in the ring but throw a clothesline. I mean, he took no bumps, he did nothing. So he’s walking to the back and I just happened to walk back there. For whatever reason, I just happened to go check on something, and Scott’s laying in the floor, and there’s people around him and they’re holding his hand and we’re talking to him.”

On helping save Steiner’s life: “I’m getting closer to him and he’s purple. Like, his lips is purple, and I was like, ‘The brother’s not breathing. Why are we holding hands?’ And I know nobody at this point. I’m like, ‘Listen, we got to do this’ so, I jump in and I start the compressions, chest compressions, and I hear somebody like, ‘Why’s he doing that?’ And I’ll tell you why because if you’re unresponsive, even though you’re not breathing, if you’re getting blood pumped to your organs, they’re usually going to be okay. Even when you get shocked or whatever and come back. If you keep that blood pumping, you keep that blood going to the brain, you still got oxygen in your blood, you’re probably not gonna go brain dead… Let’s get this going…

“And there’s another guy that jumps in because I don’t know if you’ve ever done chest compressions but after so long, you’re winded. So another brother jumps in and he’s doing some chest compressions and we swap out a couple of times, and then they come in with the defibrillator and all the things and shock him and send him on his way and I’ll be honest, I told him this after we talked, I did not think he was alive when he left.”

On how being at the show potentially saved Steiner’s life: “Scott was on the phone with his wife — I can’t remember her name right now — but they were calling and letting everybody, ‘Hey, this has happened.’ What was very fortunate, I found out later is he had had a procedure done a couple weeks before that, and had he been home, and not taking that booking, we wouldn’t have Scott Steiner… It was going to happen either way.”