Play money game saves poker player's life

As one member of a group of friends playing at PokerStars passes out, her friends rally round to help save her life.

In a feel-good story published on the PokerStars website, written by Brad Willis, players involved in a play money poker game helped to save the life of another at the table.

The story goes that as the players opened up their game, one player noticed that blood had begun to seep from a recent leg wound. Before long, the seep turned into a heavy flow, spiking her blood pressure and, as it plummeted dramatically, the whole thing played out in real time through the game’s chat box.

Having reached critical levels, her playing mates pushed her to call for help but before long, the woman stopped replying. "I'm praying for her”, posted one user, "me 2", was its only response.

Raising Hope

In poker they say you make your own luck and luck was indeed on the woman’s side as sitting at her table that night was an A-Team of play money poker players. Among the group, all of which were civilians, was somebody who helps the US military in search and rescue, another was a Vietnam veteran and a third, miraculously, had experience in online medical emergencies.

With time critical, one user copy/pasted the group’s chat and sent it off to PokerStars’ Support, alerting them to the emergency and requesting her contact information. The poker room responded positively, giving the user everything they needed, while calling the local emergency authorities, and asking for a welfare check.

It turned out that, fortunately, before passing out, the woman with the emergency had called the emergency services who had made it to the scene and were treating her. None the less, she was grateful for the assistance her friends had given her and was back in the game the following night;

"They saved my life. My cardiologist said so and I know it. Without my heroes, I surely would have would have been unconscious, and we wouldn't have been able to stop the bleeding."

If anyone senses a similar emergency, they should email support@pokerstars.com with EMERGENCY MEDICAL SITUATION in the subject line and provide as many details as possible.