FARGO -- A Breckenridge, Minn., man is grateful after coming to Fargo to meet some guardian angels who were at the right place at the right time.

Harvey Andel, 79, a longtime worker at a Minn-Dak Beet Piler in Galchutt, N.D., was brought back to life by some quick thinking truck drivers.

"This is what I rode in?" Andel asked a Sanford AirMed flight nurse Friday, Nov. 22, when he saw the Airmed helicopter.

Standing for a quick picture in front of the helicopter that brought him from Galchutt beet piler to Sanford Hospital -- Andel didn't know he was seconds away from a memorable meeting.

"Hey, Harvey," Matt King, a rescuer, said as he shook Harvey's hand.

"Oh my gosh," a shocked Andel said. "Thank you so much."

"You are welcome," King said.

One by one, the sugar beet farmers and truck drivers who saved his life in late September all came to say hello.

"Thank you," Andel said to farmer Matt Granholt, another rescuer. "Nice to officially meet you," Daniel Nill, beet truck driver, said.

Nearly two months to the day the group thought they may have lost him. Andel, who has worked the Galchutt piler for nearly 50 years, was working the morning of Sept. 25 when he suddenly went down. Cardiac arrest.

"My coworker said I fell ahead to start with, and backwards and hit my head. That is all I remember; I don't remember that even," Andel said.

"I was the next truck in line to get dumped and the piler stopped, and I thought 'Oh crap, the piler broke, here I sit,' " Granholt said.

But soon drivers and farmers at the beet piler came to the rescue.

"One of my other truck drivers called and said 'Get over here, we don't know CPR as well as you do, get over here,' " King said.

"I started running truck to truck, trying to find anyone who knew CPR," Granholt said.

Some of them had emergency medical services training and so it was a team effort. Some CPR, some administering shocks to try and bring Andel back.

"The best feeling was when the AED (automated external defibrillator) didn't advise a second shock, then we felt like it did its thing," Daniel Nill, another rescuer, said. Nill had taken paramedic classes years ago. And King had some emergency medical training.

Friday's meeting was just what Andel wanted. A chance to say thanks.

"Awesome, just awesome," he said. "It is just like winning the lottery, but instead of winning money, I got my life back." Harvey said.

And for the Good Samaritans who all helped save Harvey?

"If they hadn't been right there, I would've been gone," Harvey said.

A great way to kick off an upcoming Thanksgiving Week.

"Pretty good feeling, nice to meet him," Nill said.

"I've seen him for many years at the piler, nice to see him doing well," Granholt said.

It's not Andel's first rodeo. He has survived near death experiences while hunting and ice fishing -- a stroke and a heart attack.

Now this.

"People tell me I have nine lives, I said, let's figure out just how many I have had," he said, laughing.