Leela Gupta, NP
On Sunday, May 18, Leela Gupta, NP, who works at The Mount Sinai Hospital on the Heart Transplant team, took her four-month-old puppy, Otis, out for a walk to McCarren Park, near her home in Brooklyn. She was walking along the track at the perimeter of a playing field when she heard a group of men screaming. They were playing soccer, so at first she thought there might be a fight over a disputed call. However, she looked over and noticed one of the players on the ground—a large man in his mid-60s who appeared lifeless, lying on his side.
She asked a bystander what was going on, and he said the player might be choking. She ran to assess the situation and announced she was a nurse practitioner trained in CPR. She noticed that the man had labored breathing and felt his neck for a carotid pulse, but could not feel one. She asked for help flipping the man from his side to his back, began CPR, and asked someone to call 911.
During compressions, Leela asked if anyone in the crowd knew CPR so she could alternate compressions, but no one responded. One of the players from the opposing team began to sing and clap the Bee Gees song “Staying Alive”, which Leela says was actually helpful. “It was total silence except for that song; the beat of which was perfectly timed to the rhythm of my chest compressions.”
A few minutes into providing CPR, Leela was worried her compressions would become compromised as she grew fatigued. Since no one else was trained in CPR, she instructed one of the man’s teammates to place his hands over the man’s sternum and provide compressions to the beat of the song. She kept her fingers on the victim’s femoral artery to ensure a palpable pulse during these brief breaks, which meant the compressions were effectively circulating blood and adequately performed. She rotated places with him for about ten minutes until Emergency Medical Services arrived.
The paramedics analyzed the man’s heart rate and provided one shock to the man’s heart using a defibrillator, and a heartbeat was restored. He was then transferred to a local hospital for further evaluation. “CPR is a lifesaving technique that helps circulate oxygenated blood until medical help arrives, but defibrillation is often needed to restore the heartbeat,” Leela says. “Without CPR, even if a heartbeat is later restored, the person in cardiac arrest risks brain injury or brain death from lack of oxygen.”
Leela has been in touch with the man’s daughter, who said her father is recovering from coronary artery bypass surgery.
“I am just relieved he is okay. Ironically, I care for very sick heart patients, but this is the first time I have ever had to perform CPR outside of the hospital setting. With no one else trained to do heart compressions on the field, and no automatic external defibrillator (AED) nearby, admittedly I was concerned about the outcome. Thinking about that day is sobering,” Leela says. “There had to be over 100 people at the scene, and not one person knew CPR. That is so scary. This man would have died had I not been at the right place at the right time, and sheds a light on the importance of all adults learning this truly lifesaving skill.”