In the midst of the fervor that is Friday night football, there was a brief moment of silence for a Willis High School junior who had a very scary moment at school. During gym class Friday morning, Adrian Longoria collapsed after complaining of shortness of breath.

Someone quickly performed CPR while a school nurse grabbed the school's defibrillator. School officials credit the quick action and the use of the defibrillator for saving Longoria's life.

“It's an expensive piece of equipment and you hope that you never use it. But when you do, you can save a life,” said Willis ISD superintendent Brian Semlicka. “I look back now and all the six years that we worked on this and it paid for itself today.”

State law requires every school district in Texas to buy defibrillators for each school campus at state expense. More than 3,000 defibrillators have been deployed in our schools at a cost of about $4 million.

Students who know Longoria are thankful the piece of equipment was on campus, and their thoughts were with their friend.

“Our English class, we were just quiet. We are going to keep (Adrian) in our hearts. (I) hope he gets better and things will all be the same again,” said classmate and friend Candace Luna.

“A couple of kids were crying because, for some of them, he was their friend,” said high school senior Joe Gonzales.

Longoria was in stable condition at a hospital in the Texas Medical Center on Friday night.