Shmuel Gajer DCDR 11
CDR 11 Shmuel Gajer, VFC 14-01
William Howe, FSO-MT 11-13 Nino
DeSalvo, and Robert Lederman 11-13 who are all Maimonides employees, NYC paramedics, and certified AHA instructors taught CPR & First Aid at Coast Guard Station New York to 24 active-duty members of the U.S. Coast Guard on Tuesday March 15 and again to 29 members on Thursday March 17.
On Thursday, while on break at the second course given at Station New York, one of the active duty members recognized the instructors from the previous time we taught about a year ago and approached us. He told us that two months following our previous class he responded to a jumper down off the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson River. During the preliminary search, a female’s body was found vertically subsurface in the water. The crew removed the person from the water and onto their boat. During their initial assessment, the victim was apneic and
pulseless. Remembering their recent training they immediately began CPR.
As they pulled ashore to the awaiting first responders, an NYPD officer questioned the crew's attempts with a statement along the lines of, "Another DOA?", only to be startled when one of the crewmembers checked for and felt a faint pulse. The officer ran back to retrieve the AED in the trunk of the squad car. The patient was shocked twice on scene before being transported to a nearby hospital with return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC).
Although the reporting news outlets thanked the heroic NYPD for their great work, the Coast Guard member felt good to have contributed to the positive outcome based on the right training, capability and knowledge to perform CPR. Auxiliarist Robby Lederman thanked him and told him it was stories like these that make our job enjoyable and reinforce our reason for our doing what we do.
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Auxiliarists Teach Active Duty CPR
OVER THE BOW Summer 2016