Michael Maslanka has returned to teaching at UNT Dallas College of Law after students, including a Navy SEAL veteran, revived him from a fatal heart rhythm during class.
The 73-year-old associate professor collapsed mid-lecture on Oct. 6, moments after warning students he might not be able to continue. “I just saw blackness,” Maslanka told the university Tuesday, describing the sudden blackout that interrupted his employment law class.
Third-year student Matthew Melton, 45, was first to reach the stricken professor. The Navy SEAL veteran had trained with 18 Delta medics and field surgeons during deployments to Bahrain in 2001 and Iraq in 2005, and had taught CPR classes while in the Special Forces. “Students were freaking out. Action needed to be taken,” he told the law school.
Melton performed three rounds of CPR, shifting between chest compressions and rescue breaths as Maslanka flickered in and out of consciousness. “He came back. Then he went out [of consciousness] again. I was going from chest compressions to forced air [in his mouth]. When I did the first compression, I could hear his ribs break,” Melton said. When Maslanka briefly revived, he shouted in terror. “He thought his life was about to be extinguished. He didn’t know where he was,” the veteran added.
Fellow student Sanchez, who had lost her father to a heart attack two years earlier, prayed through the chaos. “Everyone was bawling,” she said of the ordeal that unfolded before the stunned class.
Maslanka had suffered ventricular tachycardia, a dangerous arrhythmia where the heart’s upper and lower chambers lose synchronization. After 11 days hospitalized, he emerged with a stark assessment of his survival. “I had one that night. Life or death,” he said, framing the episode as a literal crossroads. “They knew what to do. They organized themselves intuitively. And that saved my life. Let me just be clear,” he told WFAA. “I would not be here today if my students did not act quickly, thoughtfully and responsibly. I would be dead. They saved my life.”
The rescue carried an almost uncanny symmetry with Maslanka’s own teaching. Twelve years earlier, he had appeared in a Texas Bar program titled “Mike Maslanka @ your desk,” where he urged students to “think like a SEAL.” Now one had done exactly that, under the most dire circumstances imaginable. Melton attributed his readiness to his combat experience. “Always be able and ready to pivot and always be open to what might happen,” he said.
Maslanka, who joined UNT Dallas in 2015, has since resumed teaching ethics and employment law. He is also preparing an article for Texas Lawyer, drawing directly from the incident: “Four Life Hacks That Dying (Twice) Taught Me.”