"You had to be there to believe it."

Those are the words of Bills fan Nick Maneely, a 39-year-old father who earlier this year, performed CPR with the help of two other fathers nearby to save another man's life during his son's youth lacrosse game in Rochester.

The three fathers will be honored pregame at Highmark Stadium with the American Heart Association's HeartSaver Award.

Maneely and a hundred or so families were at Tri County Sports Complex on Feb. 1 when Dale Lazzaro, the father of one of the other boys, suddenly went into cardiac arrest. Maneely was in the area and spotted a woman calling out for help and went over to assess the situation.

"I've been a volunteer, first responder, for a little over 20 years now," he said. "Your 'spidey senses' start going off like there's something not right happening over here."

Maneely and one of the other fathers who came over, noticed Lazzaro was not responding to their cues and his skin tone started to change. Soon after, another father, Army veteran Tom Schmitz came over to help.

"We noticed he didn't have a pulse," Maneely recalled. "We realized that Dale had gone into cardiac arrest. So we began CPR."

The men traded off giving compressions for 25-30 minutes before EMTs arrived.

At this point, enough time had passed that others in the sports complex began to take notice. In a large room of youth lacrosse players, other families assisted with guiding the kids, including Lazzaro's son, away from the cardiac event so that CPR could be performed.

"God put all of us there at the right place, at the right time for this to happen. And we were successful," Maneely shared.

Once the EMTs arrived, they were able to deliver several shocks to Lazzaro with a defibrillator and get a pulse back. He was transferred to a local hospital where he remained there for over a week.

After eight days, Lazzaro was released from the hospital and declared fully healthy with no setbacks. Two weeks after his cardiac arrest, Lazzaro was back at lacrosse practice to watch his son.

"No brain damage, no heart damage. There he was, back to normal," Maneely said.

Lazzaro and the three fathers who came to his aid have since become close friends. All four of them and their families will attend Sunday's Bills game where they will be given the HeartSavers Award.

Maneely described the whole series of events as "remarkable" and "incredible" that everything happened the way it did.

"We know we were all put there for a reason that night and we had an amazing outcome as a result of it," he shared.

As the Bills and the American Heart Association continue to educate the community on AED awareness and CPR training, Maneely believes that anyone is capable of learning hands-only CPR.

"Get involved. Get trained. Don't be somebody that just sits back and waits for somebody else to step up and do it. Be that person that has training, that can do it and can save somebody's life and take care of your neighbor. I think that's the most important thing," he said.

Visit the Heart Health Awareness resource page on the Bills website to learn more about how you can get CPR trained.