Jim Joyce is a Major League Baseball umpire unfortunately known best for a painfully obvious blown call a couple years ago that sadly cost Armando Galarraga a perfect game. However, Joyce managed to handle that ugly situation with such grace and humility that you couldn’t help but feel for the guy. On Monday night in Arizona, the gruff umpire ended up saving the life of Diamondbacks employee Jayne Powers, performing CPR after she stopped breathing due to a seizure.

The unfortunate situation occurred about 90 minutes before the start of the Marlins-D-Backs game, where Joyce and the rest of the umpiring crew saw Powers having a seizure. Moments later, Joyce began CPR. Paramedics arrived soon after, making an unsuccessful attempt to revive Powers with a defibrillator, but she began to breath with Joyce continuing to perform CPR while paramedics did another round with the defibrillator.

Powers was then rushed to the hospital and despite further complications in the ambulance, I’m happy to report she is doing well and expected to be released by the end of the week.

Here’s Joyce on the situation, as well as declining his crew’s suggestion of working third base rather than go behind the plate for that evening’s game:

“It was very emotional, I’ll be honest with you,” said Joyce. “But I didn’t want to go to third base because just standing there, literally, [the incident] is all I would have thought about all night. I wouldn’t have been able to think about anything else. Going behind the plate, I would have something to do every minute. I could just do my job. But I’ll be honest with you, there were still times during the game that I was thinking about it.”

Can’t blame Joyce for drifting. Most of us would’ve requested the night off.

Be sure to watch this clip of Joyce interacting with an Arizona fan who held up a sign in tribute to him, along with some footage of Diamondback employees thanking the selfless umpire.

[via New York Daily News, CBS Sports]

Previously: Jim Joyce Apologizes For Blown Call That Ruined Armando Galarraga’s Perfect Game
Previously: Umpire Jim Joyce’s Horrible, Wrong Call at 1st Base Ruins Armando Galarraga’s Perfect Game [UPDATE]