Suffolk County man reunited with officers who saved him during cardiac arrest
MIDDLE ISLAND (WABC) -- What started as a picnic on a beautiful day in Suffolk County suddenly took a frightening turn when a man went into cardiac arrest.
A group of officers immediately took action, giving him CPR and reviving him before he was taken to the hospital.
On Tuesday, that man was reunited with the officers who saved his life.
It could have gone very differently for 73-year-old Lenny Muzzillo.
"Seven minutes seems like an eternity, believe it or not, watching this unfold," Brookhaven Senior Center Aide Maryanne Koepper said.
Bodycam footage from the Suffolk County Sheriff's Office showed seven long minutes of CPR last month at the Brookhaven Town Senior Picnic.
"My heart just sank, and we all know CPR two minutes and that's it and apparently, for these guys, it was a miracle," Muzzillo's sister Diane Summerfold said.
One minute, Muzzillo, who is also on the autism spectrum, was having a blast dancing with two women and the next, he woke up in an ambulance.
Muzzillo had four blockages in his heart, three of them complete blockages, so he needed a quadruple bypass and he spent 11 days in two different hospitals.
Officer Sean Higgins and Deputy Sheriff Dylan Hever alternated doing the compressions that day to save Muzzillo and Officer Travis Yacovone called for assistance.
"Time was going slow that day in that moment," Officer Higgins said.
"It just goes to show you that if you keep that blood flowing that you buy enough time for the ambulance to get there," Officer Travis Yacovone said.
There was also an AED and undoubtedly a lot of praying for a dear friend who loves life.
"Everybody who meets Lenny falls in love with him. There is nobody else like Lenny," Moepper said.
"I've done CPR countless times and that was the first one I was able to actually bring back and words can't even describe even the look on his sister's face," Deputy Sheriff Dylan Hever said.
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