Nursing student helps save man's life after collapsing while snow blowing his driveway
WEST ISLIP, Long Island (WABC) -- Molloy College nursing student Hailey Hickey is being credited with saving a man's life who collapsed while snow blowing his driveway on Saturday night.
Hickey said she had just arrived at a friend's house in West Islip around 830 p.m. when her friend's father came in and said his neighbor had just collapsed.
Hickey said she threw on her shoes and ran outside.
"I checked for breathing and a pulse," she said. "He, unfortunately, didn't have anything."
Hickey said she began performing CPR.
She said about 10 minutes later, two Suffolk County Police Officers, Terence Slane and Tristen David, arrived on scene and helped do CPR on the 71-year-old male victim.
Hickey said neighbors began shoveling the road in order to ensure the ambulance could get to the victim.
Hickey said once EMTs arrived, they used an AED and were able to resuscitate the man. He is in critical condition at the hospital.
Three people died on Long Island Saturday shoveling snow - two men in Syosset and one man in Cutchogue.
Dr. Evelina Grayver, the Director of the Coronary Intensive Care Unit at North Shore University Hospital, said she treated seven patients this weekend who suffered massive heart attacks while shoveling.
She called it a "phenomenon" and think it may be related to the pandemic. She believes people are either out of shape due to the pandemic or people suffered cardiovascular damage from having COVID.
Grayver said people should shovel in 15 increments and then come inside, relax and then go back out.
She also said people shouldn't shovel on a full stomach because the heart is already working hard digesting and can't take anymore strain.
"Going outside and doing a significant strenuous event like shoveling could definitely be detrimental," she said.
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