WARMINSTER, Penn.--In Bucks County, they're still marveling over the
life-saving efforts of a local fire chief. As
it turns out, his heroics weren't performed while battling a blaze, but at a
kids' basketball game.
John
Cochrane, 62, was coaching his grandson's team in the Warminster Basketball
Association Championship game in Bucks County when, during a time-out, he fell
to his knees and quickly blacked out. He was falling victim to sudden cardiac
arrest.
That's
when Mitch Shapiro jumped in. Shapiro's son plays on Cochrane's team but he's
also the chief of the Warminster Fire Department.
Fortunately,
the gym where the game was being played is equipped with a defibrillator, also
known as an AED.
"I
placed the AED on him and listened to the prompts and it advised me for a shock
and we shocked him and within 5 or 10 seconds he was alert and conscious and
back with us," Shapiro said.
"I
was breathing and I was coherent and I could see all the people around me but I
only heard my wife's voice and my wife saying 'don't let him die, please don't
let him die'," said Cochrane.
A
short time later Cochrane was inside Abington Hospital where he underwent
successful heart surgery.
Now
he's back home spending time with his wife and family but still haunted by the
words his doctor spoke when he was still at the hospital.
"'You
should be dead. If that man out there didn't do what he did you're
dead'." Cochrane recalled.
He
still has a hard time talking about what happened that day but he still wanted
to make sure that he said one thing specifically to Chief Shapiro.
"So
for that I say thank you and God bless him because he's a good man, he really
is."
SOURCE:
WPVI