SUMMERDALE, Ala. — What happened to Jessie Akers on May 31 is measured in minutes, namely, 6:56 a.m. to 7:08 a.m.

There are other small things to consider as well, such as the fact Jessie is eight months pregnant.

She was counting down the cash register drawer that Sunday morning when she noticed a customer at a nearby table who appeared to be having trouble.

“It looked like a seizure,” she said this week in recounting the story.

“I went over and asked if I should call 911.”

The man occupying the table with the man who was stricken said yes. Jessie made the call.

“They said to pull him out of the booth and lay him down on his side,” Jessie said of the 911 operator’s instructions.

“Another associate, Shelly Bailey, came over and they moved the man out of the booth. They noticed he wasn’t breathing anymore. He was turning blue — his fingernails, lips and tongue.”

The 911 operator told Jessie they needed to do cardio pulmonary resuscitation — CPR.

“I didn’t know how, nor did anyone else.”

The operator explained how the man should be placed on his back and his airway cleared. That’s when they noticed the man had bitten his tongue and there was blood. Jessie told the operator how she was eight months pregnant; what should she do in light of the bleeding and other medical complications they learned the man had.

Chest compressions are what the operator instructed Jessie to initiate.

“Thirty increments and stop,” Jessie said of the instructions, but when she did the man still wasn’t breathing.

With another Waffle House employee on the phone with 911, Jessie was told to continue the chest compressions.

Summerdale Police Officer Quintin Bettner arrived at the restaurant shortly after 7 a.m. He remembers well the fear and stress evident in the Waffle House staff as they worked to save the man’s life.

“I told her, you’re doing fine; keep going,” Bettner recalls telling Jessie.

At one point, the stricken man began to gasp.

Bettner eventually took over the chest compressions and within a minute and a half or so an ambulance arrived. According to Jessie, the EMTs had to use the defibrillator on the man at least three times. It took 23 minutes to get him stabilized enough to move.

According to Bettner, Jessie Akers probably saved the man’s life.

“The medical unit said he probably wouldn’t have survived if Jessie hadn’t done what she did,” said Bettner, who has been with Summerdale Police Department for five years.

There isn’t any probably where Tonia Pugh of Robertsdale is concerned. She has worked at Waffle House for six months, and she was on the job during those few minutes that Sunday morning.

“He died, and Jessie saved his life. She’s a hero,” Tonia said.

Indeed, the man was scheduled to be released from South Baldwin Regional Medical Center on Tuesday, according to Jessie.

“I think we were all walking around in shock,” Jessie said of the aftermath of the incident. “Emotional” and “terrified” are the words she uses.

“I’m usually the one who freaks out,” Jessie said, noting the “dish pit” at Waffle House is the worst thing she has had to deal with as a Waffle House employee, that is, prior to that Sunday morning.

For what surely ranks as the epitome in customer service, Jessie received a plaque for bravery from Waffle House and a hero’s pin.

“I was proud of myself,” she said. Her 4 and 8-year-old boys thought what she did was “very cool.” Her 17-year-old daughter works at Waffle House in Loxley, where Jessie learned the restaurant staff there and Loxley police were talking about what she did. Jessie also has a 9-year-old daughter.

And the child she is carrying? Jessie knows it’s a girl.

First name: Madeline.

Middle name: Grace.