EMTs, Cops Help Save Woman’s Life in Sagaponack

A housekeeper in Sagaponack is alive today thanks to the joint rescue efforts of Southampton Town police and emergency workers from the Bridgehampton Fire Department and the Southampton Ambulance.

On the afternoon of Aug. 27, Southampton Town police received a 911 call from a resident in Sagaponack, reporting that their housekeeper had passed out and was turning blue.

Police Officer Richard Spera rushed to the call and got to the house within one minute, police said in a statement. He immediately began CPR on the 55-year-old woman. Shortly after, Spera was joined by Officer Theodore Jasinski until the Bridgehampton Fire Department ambulance carrying an emergency medical technician, Jeffrey White, who is also the second assistant fire chief.

According to Bridgehampton Fire Chief Gary Horsburgh, White immediately helped the officers apply and administer their AED, which is a portable defibrillator. One shock was administered, according to Chief Horsburgh, and they continued another round of CPR for two minutes. The AED’s second analysis advised no shock.

In the meantime, advanced life support was requested from Southampton Volunteer Ambulance. Within minutes Philip Cammann, a paid paramedic who also happens to volunteer with the Bridgehampton Fire Department, arrived.

After Cammann and other EMTs who volunteer with Bridgehampton also arrived, the AED analyzed for a third time, advising a second shock. The woman still had no pulse.

Rescuers placed the department’s new LUCAS device, which is a machine that straps around an unresponsive victim and performs regular chest compression automatically.

While still lying on the floor of the home she works to maintain, the woman finally regained a pulse and even registered a blood pressure. Horsburgh said the woman was without a pulse for more than five minutes in total, which made the resuscitation all the more special.

“She was down for five minutes and that’s pretty rare,” Horsburgh said. “Our EMS team here at Bridgehampton Fire Department is doing an excellent job, thank God.”

Once the pulse came back, the rescuers immediately rushed the woman to Southampton Hospital. She was then taken to the ICU at Stony Brook University Medical Center for further treatment.

The EMS team that responded included Mark Balserus, a fireman who helped with initial CPR on the woman, ambulance driver Jack Zito, and emergency medical technicians, all of whom are volunteers, Chief White, John O’Brien, Nicholas Hemby — who responded in the department’s first responder vehicle — and Taylor Vecsey — who is also the editor of East Hampton and Southampton Patch sites.

Horsburgh said that the department broke in three new EMTs this year, two of whom were on the scene at the Sagaponack rescue.

This is the third person in cardiac arrest whom department volunteers revived in just two months. In July, volunteers, Southampton Town police, and bystanders helped to save the life of a man who was electrocuted while setting up for the ArtHamptons exhibition.

Less than a week later, the department’s volunteers and East Hampton Town police saved a heart attack victim in Wainscott.

“I can’t say enough for them,” Horsburgh said. “They’re really doing a great job — especially in the summertime. To get through traffic and save three people is really something else.”

Asked if they marked the saves in anyway, Horsburgh said they hadn’t, though he said plans are in place to recognize them in the coming weeks.

“No celebration. That’s what we’re here for, that’s what we do it for,” he said. “But our annual banquet is coming up on Sept. 20 and these individuals are definitely going to be recognized at the banquet.”