CLINTON, Iowa — Three members of the Clinton County Sheriff’s Office have received the sheriff’s Life-Saving Award after a lunch-hour CPR response helped save Jean Hupfer in April, according to the Clinton Herald.

The Clinton Herald reported that Chief Deputy Steve Diesch, Sheriff’s Assistant Joe Raaymakers and Sgt. Brian Grell were credited during a Monday, June 22, 2026, Clinton County Board of Supervisors meeting.

“I would not be here,” Hupfer, of Clinton, told the Herald, “if it was not for these three.”

A normal lunch turned into an emergency

According to the report, Hupfer was at Manning’s Whistle Stop on North Second Street with friends on April 1 when Diesch, Raaymakers and Grell came in for lunch. Hupfer visited with them briefly, then returned to her table and became unresponsive.

Sheriff Bill Greenwalt described the response as coordinated and immediate: one person assessed Hupfer, one retrieved an AED from the squad and another began notifying additional emergency medical services, the Herald reported.

“These three operated like a well-oiled machine,” Greenwalt said, according to the Herald.

The newspaper reported that Hupfer was revived with CPR. The Herald’s photo caption said Grell recalled Hupfer’s surprise after she was revived, and that all three men were credited with saving her life.

Five sheriff’s life-saving awards in six years

The Herald reported that, over the past six years, five Sheriff’s Life-Saving Awards have been given in recognition of law-enforcement lifesaving efforts.

For Support Law Enforcement readers, the story is a reminder that lifesaving police work can begin in an ordinary place: a restaurant table, a patrol squad’s AED and three public-safety workers moving quickly before a medical emergency becomes a tragedy.

Sources reviewed

Editorial note: ThinBlueNews used the Clinton Herald report and a real source photo with attribution. The article limits private medical details, attributes claims to the source and does not use staged or AI-generated emergency imagery.