A man who was brought back to life after he suffered cardiac arrest and died in Southold in May met the team of rescuers who saved him at a meeting of the Southold Fire Department Monday night.
Greenport resident Joseph OByrne, 57, smiled as he addressed the group.
“Thank you, to everyone, for showing up that day,” he said. “Prayers are answered. Miracles happen. You folks were God’s hands.”
According to Peggy Killian, chief of the Southold Fire Department, the CPR save took place on May 22 at 12:49 p.m. after OByrne, who was riding in a truck, collapsed on Route 25 and Oaklawn Avenue — and a team of well-trained first responders literally brought the man, whose heart had stopped beating, back to life.
The driver of the truck, Mike Volinski, hailed Southold traffic control officer Jeffrey Weingart, who is also Greenport Fire Department’s 2nd Assistant Chief, just as Southold Fire Department Paul Reinckens, came upon the scene.
OByrne, a truck driver for Jernick Moving & Storage in Greenport, was riding in the passenger seat as a driver’s helper with his colleague, Volinski of East Marion, when he went into cardiac arrest — he had no heartbeat for over four minutes, he said.
“He saw me slump forward in the truck and, rather than panic and lose his head, he stayed calm and thinking. His actions set the events in motion which saved my life. In my opinion, he’s a hero: tested and proven. Like all heroes, he acted in the moment, without hesitation and made the critical difference: getting me to those who could help me. Things could have been so very different but for his presence of mind and swift reactions,” OByrne said of Volinski.
Recalling that fateful moment, Volinski said, “I’m not a hero. I just put it in motion. Everyone worked together to save him.”
Next, OByrne said Volinski recognized Southold Police traffic control officer Jeff Weingart, and “locked up the brakes” as he stopped to get help.
“I was just in the right place at the right time,” Weingart said. “Eight minutes later and I wouldn’t have been there. I got to the truck and saw him slumped over. His face was turning purple due to lack of oxygen, and he had no pulse.”
The save, Weingart said, was his third; his first save involved a boater at Townsend Manor about eight years ago. The feeling, he said, of knowing he coud help to bring OByrne back, is one of sheer relief. “It’s shows how important all the hard work and training really is. Mr. OByrne is living proof of that.”
Reinckens, OByrne said, is also an EMT and a four-year veteran of the Southold Fire Department.
“As he pulled around, he looked in through the still open door of the cab and saw me, slumped over,” he said. “Now it was his turn to lock up the brakes and race to the side of the truck, pulling me bodily from the cab. He acted quickly, on trained instinct, and immediately began administering CPR, forcing oxygen into my blood and that blood into my brain. His actions would prove critical to saving my life and saving my brain functions. Words can not express my gratitude to him for saving both.”
Weingart pulled a defibrillator from the vehicle, he said. Firefighters Michelle Salmon and Chris Drum also arrived on he scene.
At this point in the meeting, a moment of silence was taken for Drum, who died at 42 recently.
Recalling the day she helped to save OByrne, Salmon said the adrenaline “just kicked in.”
Renee Phelps, who was also present, said she made it to Southold from Cutchogue, and traffic just worked out to ensure she’d be there to help save him.
As his rescuers worked desperately to save him, performing CPR and using the defibillator, “two or three times they tried and my heart failed to restart,” he said.
By the time he was in the ambulance and shocked a fourth time, EMTs were finally able to establish a heartbeat, and OByrne began breathing again independently.
“Four times, you snatched me back from death,” he said.
Describing what it felt like to have actually died, OByrne said, ” I kind of remember my body, not like lying in bed before you sleep, just sensations, a whooshing feeling. I remember hearing a few spoken syllables, not even full words.”
“That’s probably a good thing,” one of the EMTs joked.
OByrne laughed. “A cousin of mine asked me, ‘Now that you’ve died, tell me about the other side.’ I told him, ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but there were no pearly gates, no white lights. Truth be told, I don’t think they let me out of the car in the parking lot near the pearly gates before they sent me back.'”
Taken first to Eastern Long Island Hospital, he was next airlifted to Stony Brook Hospital, where he died, again, and a defibrillator was used to bring him back.
OByrne had a quadruple bypass.
Brimming with emotion, OByrne thanked his team of angels and Dr. Harold Fernandez, his surgeon, as well as the staff at Stony Brook.
As he recovers, OByrne said life will be markedly different. With a defibrillator in his chest, he can no longer drive trucks, but has worked in other fields, including as a consultant to pension funds.
Although at first, it did not seem as if he’d survive — relatives were told at Eastern Long Island Hospital that he was in very bad shape — OByrne said Dr. Fernandez, and all who had a hand in his rescue, saved him.
Dr. Daniel Yellon, OByrne said, saw him at Stony Brook for gall bladder issues, and told him, “In all my years, I’ve never heard of anyone who’s gone through the amount of trauma you did and came out as well as you did. You have no idea what a miracle you are. That’s because of you folks here.”
And then, pointing to another incident he’s seen as nothing short of a miracle, OByrne describes something that happened during his hospital stay.
“They’d stopped the pain meds for a procedure and I wasn’t surrounded by pain, I was immersed in it,” he said. “I was in a fetal position and I remember saying to God, ‘No disrespect to the doctors and EMTs who saved me, but if this is what you saved me for, it may have been better if you let me go. I’m not making it here. If this was a miracle, I need your help. Give me a sign.'”
A few minutes later, OByrne said his roommate asked if he was Christian and OByrne, a former alter boy, said he had beliefs. His roommate prayed for him and put his hand on his shoulder.
“He had no idea what he’d just done. Ten minutes before, I’d asked for a sign or a message. “God’s not going to come in a thunderbolt or a ghostly form. He comes through your hands. That’s what you folks did.”
OByrne and Chris Manfredi of the Southold Fire Department presented all the rescuers with pins.
“Thank you for saving my life,” he said to his saviors, in a past SoutholdLocal interview. “It’s a miracle. Not just to come back with my life, but with my memory, my vocabulary, my experiences — I’ve spent a lifetime accumulating it all and to come back and have it all with me is such a gift. They not only saved my life but they restored me to my full life, accumulated through years of experience and learning. They are truly heroes and words can not properly convey my thanks to them.”
