This morning at approximately 9:30, Oak Bluffs Fire/EMS responded to a call for a man who suffered an apparent heart attack in his truck, parked in front of Mocha Mott’s Cafe on Circuit Avenue.
The man, an Islander whose name has not been released pending notification of next of kin, eventually died later in the day.
But he was given a fighting chance after his pulse was revived by the actions of Mocha Mott’s owner Scott Allen Hershowitz, who is is an Oak Bluffs volunteer EMT, Oak Bluffs EMS paramedic Trulayna Rose, who was stopping by the cafe for coffee, and three passing good Samaritans.
“When I looked into the vehicle, I could see something wasn’t right,” Ms. Rose said. After he didn’t react to her knocks on the window, she opened the door and found him unresponsive, with no pulse. “I dispatched and went and got Scotty for help,” she said.
“There were loads of other people who helped, it wasn’t just me,” Mr. Hershowitz said early Thursday afternoon in his busy cafe, before getting the news of the victim’s death. “Trulayna said she saw him take a couple agonal breaths, that’s one of the last breaths your body can make. This young Serbian guy was walking by, asked if we needed help. We got him out of the truck, laid him down, and started doing compressions. Then two bystanders who knew CPR offered to help and we started switching out on the compressions. Sometimes radio communications on the Island are a little shoddy, and Trulayna was having a hard time getting back up. We were in the weeds for a few minutes, but luckily those three bystanders helped out.”
Judging by the one-minute intervals of compressions, Mr. Hershowitz estimated it was about five minutes before Oak Bluffs and Edgartown first responders arrived on scene. He commended them for acting quickly and in concert to tend to the victim, stop traffic, and clear the way for the ambulance.
“I always find it amazing when something really bad happens, the amount of people that come out of the woodwork to help,” he said. “This Serbian kid, maybe people gave him grief for taking someone’s job, and he helps an American citizen out of a car and helps us do CPR. By the time we got [the victim] into the ambulance, he had a shallow pulse, so the CPR really helped, which was awesome.”
Mr. Hershowitz, an EMT with 12 years experience, said chest compressions have to be rigorous to be effective. “You have to push very, very hard. Even someone in really good shape can only do it for a few minutes. You have to get good depth to reach the heart, even on an elderly person. You may break a rib, but they’ll be alive.”