Adventure Guide Becomes ‘Disney Hero’ During Medical Emergency

When it comes to Disney employees (especially Disney Cast Members), there has been a lot of discernible tension between said employees and higher-ups like Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger lately. However, according to the Disney Parks Blog, at least one Disney-affiliated individual has just had a powerfully poignant experience!

Former Disneyland Resort Cast Member Danny Davis (who first worked on Paradise Pier) has been working as an Adventures by Disney guide in the Wyoming area and was recently leading a National Geographic Expedition in Yellowstone National Park.

During a trip this past September that involved exploring a remote and hard-to-access area called the Norris Geyser Basin, one of the guests told Davis that her husband seemed sick.

The expedition guest’s husband seemed to be overheated, and some Expedition Leaders might have chalked it up to simply feeling overheated, but Davis caught on quickly and used ice and water to start cooling off the guest.

The expedition member soon reportedly “became less coherent, and his hands were going numb”; Davis rapidly evacuated all of the other expedition members from the expedition’s motorcoach and got the sick guest to Madison Ranger Station, where the guest then “went into cardiac arrest” that required “CPR, a defibrillator, and emergency transport via helicopter”.

The guest survived the “incredibly difficult and sensitive emergency,” with Davis’s quick actions being largely credited for his survival.

“It was very difficult mentally and emotionally,” Danny has said of the experience. “Any emergency situation where there is a life on the line is a lot for anyone to handle, especially when you are essentially out in the wilderness.” The importance of this rescue, and Davis’s actions, did not go unnoticed by Disney; Davis has just received an honor known as the Disney Heroes Award!

Disney’s senior vice president and general manager of Adventures and Expeditions, Nancy Schumacher, thanked Danny Davis during his virtual awards ceremony.

“This is a gift to not only that man, but to his family, his loved ones, his friends, everyone he knows and will interact with for the rest of his life,” Nancy stated during the ceremony. “We don’t ever want to be in those circumstances, but if we were I think we each hope that we could take action in the same way.”

Davis batted away the praise, saying that “none of these things would have been possible without others on the trip who did more than I could ever imagine. My team and the kind strangers who stopped to help, they are the real heroes.”

Have you ever attended a National Geographic or Adventures by Disney trip? What is the most heroic thing that you have ever seen a Cast Member do during a Disney experience?