Life Savers

Putnam EMS providers and two Good Samaritans returned to the Carmel Fitness Center Monday and demonstrated how an automated external defibrillator was used to save a life last week. Pictured are (l-r) Harry Hillis, Bob Cuomo, Tom Lannon, Adam Stiebeling, and Monique Ayala. The lifesaving couldn’t have been more dramatic if it was played out on the motion picture screen.

A 78-year-old resident of North Salem was playing a game of racquetball at the Carmel Fitness Center on Old Route Six across from the Donald Smith County Governmental Campus last week when the man collapsed and fell to the court.

Robert Tissot stopped breathing. He had no pulse and was in cardiac arrest.

Retired New York City firefighter Harry Hillis, of Mahopac, who was playing a match nearby, and nurse Monique Ayala of Carmel, who had just finished a tennis match, rushed to the man’s aid by administering CPR.

Hillis said he and Ayala started working on the victim: “We gave him a few puffs and hoped for the best!”

The club’s management dialed 911 and a call went out for Carmel Police, a paramedic from the TransCare Ambulance Service, and the Carmel Volunteer Ambulance Corps.

Putnam Director of Emergency Management Thomas Lannon and Putnam Director of Emergency Medical Services Robert Cuomo were in their office located across the street at the Bureau of Emergency Services Center when they heard the alarm for assistance.

The two men grabbed an automated external defibrillator (AED) and responded. Lannon began ventilating the patient while Cuomo started chest compressions. The patient was hooked up to the AED. Cuomo recalled the “initial rhythm was ventricular fibrillation, and one shock was delivered. CPR was continued after the shock and about one minute later the patient began to breathe more normally while his carotid pulse returned.”

Lannon called it “amazingly textbook. Everything went perfectly. Two people were doing CPR when we arrived and Bob and I took over and worked the guy. Thank God the shock did the trick. He started taking deep breaths, which became quicker and quicker. The next thing we observed was that he had a pulse and was breathing on his own. As a matter of fact, 20 minutes later when Mr. Tissot arrived at Putnam Hospital enter he was alert and talking, telling us he thought his brush with death was caused by some bad orange juice he had consumed a few moments before he stopped breathing.”

Lannon described the experience as “incredible. I’ve been employed in the EMS field for 21 years and this was the first time I was involved in saving a life in this fashion. In several other instances, we brought a patient back, but he or she succumbed hours later. I guess the good Lord wasn’t ready to welcome Mr. Tissot into heaven just yet.”

On Monday, the hero team returned to the fitness center. Hillis, who served in the FDNY for 28 years and assisted at a number of CPR cases, said, “God was on his side. The EMS guys were there in no time. Monique and I pumped on his chest to keep him from getting damaged until the pros arrived.”

Monique, who works in Rye, was also grateful for the quick response: “We did what had to be done and thank goodness, it worked.”

Cuomo reflected that this was the first instance he helped to save a life with an AED: “As a paramedic, I’ve used manual defibrillators on numerous occasions, but this was the first time with an automated defibrillator. An important lesson was learned from this call: Anyone with training can save a life. All you need is CPR instruction and an AED on hand. That’s what makes this kind of training so critical. I encourage every man, woman, and child to learn the administering of an AED. It’s simple, and, as this life saving proves, it works.”

Putnam Deputy Commissioner of Emergency Services Adam Stiebeling also responded to last week’s emergency at the fitness center. Stiebeling called Lannon and Cuomo “two professionals of the highest order. They went to work and saved a life.”

Tissot’s wife of 50 years, Jane, a retired educator in the Carmel School District, expressed joy, thanks, and gratitude that her husband survived his brush with death: “I was staggered by the entire ordeal and the quick wits of the rescue personnel at 9 o’clock in the morning.”

Jane Tissot said she understood her husband’s condition was serious, but “I never realized he had such a narrow window for survival. Another minute or so and I’d be planning a memorial service instead of welcoming him home once he undergoes heart bypass surgery at the Westchester Medical Center.”

Tissot called the emergency responders “Bob’s guardian angels. God bless them all!”

Commissioner of Emergency Services Robert McMahon praised the lifesaving as well, telling the Courier: “Mr. Tissot had it all going for him. Due to the efforts of the two Good Samaritans at the fitness center and to the training of Tom Lannon and Bob Cuomo and the fact our Emergency Operations Center was in such close proximity to the fitness center, the victim was zapped and he is alive to tell his story.”