An 83-year-old Long Island, New York, man has reunited with the hero nurses that happened to be at the right time and place when he suffered a heart attack while using an ATM in April.
On April 30, Daniel Greco, of Lake Grove, was at the Northwell Health Corporate office in Melville, where he made his usual stop at the ATM inside, News 12 reported.
As he was making his transaction, Greco suddenly went into cardiac arrest and collapsed, per Fox affiliate WNYW. Surveillance footage captured the dramatic moment when Greco fell.
Greco later remembered nothing about what happened to him that day in April. “I see it and I still don’t believe it,” he told NBC affiliate WNBC on June 27. “I don’t have a heart condition and had no heart problems.”
Fortunately, Kalie Kerschbaumer, a Northwell NetworkCare team member, was walking through the office doors while carrying her young son when she came upon Greco. She immediately yelled for help.
“I saw Mr. Greco on the ground,” Kerschbaumer later recalled, ABC affiliate WABC reported. “My instinct kicked in, and I knew through my office door that I had access to some of the world’s best nurses.”
Whitney Sinowitz was the first of a group of Northwell nurses at the scene who administered aid to Greco.
“I didn’t really think,” Sinowitz said, per News 12. “[I] just immediately started CPR and kind of sprung into action.”
Sinowitz’s fellow nurses, Samantha Meguluevich, Cristina Farrell and Ivonne Recupero, also assisted in saving Greco’s life.
Greco had open-heart surgery that lasted five hours, WNYW reported. Dr. Lawrence Ong, an interventional cardiologist with Northwell Health Cardiovascular Institute, said that Greco had three partially blocked arteries and a major blockage in a valve of his heart.
On June 27, a recovered Greco was back at the Northwell office and reunited with the nurses who gave him a second chance at life.
“I don’t know how you could thank people that saved your life, but I’d like to do that in public,” Greco said, according to WABC.
Having made a full recovery, Greco indicated that he would like to pay it forward. “I would hope I could do something that helps somebody else,” he said, per News 12.
In a statement shared with PEOPLE, Dr. Alan Hartman, co-executive director of the Northwell Health Cardiovascular Institute, said about Greco and Northwell’s employees: “This story exemplifies the incredible impact our employees have every day. A man is alive today because of these nurses and what Northwell’s employees do every day and exemplifies the connectiveness of our Cardiovascular Institute no matter where patients touch its many access points. This demonstrates that just being in vicinity of our health system can have lifesaving benefits.”
