A man is recovering after suffering a heart attack while cycling along a New York state road — and he has a quick-acting passerby to thank for helping him.
Speaking to local ABC affiliate station WHAM for a story on Thursday, Oct. 3, former teacher and grandfather-of-six Mark Reissig of Walworth — located just outside of Rochester — recalled how he was 16 miles into a routine bike ride earlier this summer when he started to feel fatigued. As he would later learn, he was experiencing the beginning of a heart attack.
“I’ve had no prior indication of any health problems with my heart whatsoever. No family history of it, and so it was devastating,” Reissig told the outlet.
According to Reissig, a health problem like this came out of the blue, considering he is an athlete who cycles extremely often.
“I used to bike 160 miles a week on average,” he said. “I’ve been doing it for 30 years. I actually am a triathlete.”
Molly Ames, of nearby Sodus, told WHAM that she was driving past when she noticed that the way Reissig “got off his bike seemed a little distressed” — and she knew she had to stop and help.
“He seemed like he was struggling. And something in my head just told me that something wasn’t right,” she said.
Reissig added, “Molly was just a citizen. She was driving by, saw someone struggling — total stranger — opened up her window and said, ‘You okay?’ “
Molly Ames, Mark Reissig and other honorees at a ceremony held by the town of Walworth, N.Y.
Town of Walworth, New York/Facebook
He recalled how he quickly told Ames to call 911 before he passed out, and Wayne County, N.Y., dispatcher Megan Williams advised her to perform CPR.
“I knew then we had to do CPR,” Williams recalled to WHAM. “Her helping and being calm with me, so I didn’t have to get her to do that…she was very willing to do that, and it helps a lot.”
“That’s how it was able to get done,” Ames added.
According to Ames, she performed CPR for seven minutes, and by the time first responders arrived and were able to restart Reissig’s heart, he had been in cardiac arrest for almost 30 minutes. Ames said she hopes anyone would have taken the time to stop, just as she did.
“I would hope anybody would do that,” she told WHAM. “I really do. I would hope anybody would do that.”
For her role in helping Reissig, Ames was given a proclamation by the town of Walworth to honor “her heroic actions of administering lifesaving CPR” to Reissig, per a Facebook post from the town. She also received a New York State Senate Citation from Sen. Pam Helming, and Walworth also shared its appreciation for Williams and Ontario Volunteer Emergency Squad medic Katie Cook “for their part in the successful resuscitation of Mark.”
“She is and forever will be my hero,” Reissig told WHAM of Ames. “She helped a total stranger, and without thinking about, how much it would have impacted her life, she just acted. And acted exactly the right thing at the exactly the right time. And I can never, never repay and thank her enough.”
