Kyle Lawson
Staten Island Advance, N.Y.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Talk about being in the right place at the right time.
When Raymond Wasson collapsed after a performance with the Breezy Point Bagpipers in August at a Brooklyn Cyclones game, panic spread quickly through a crowd of onlookers. That’s when Richmond University Medical Center nurse Stephanie Donnellan and fellow nurse, Kelly Ryman O’Mally, happened to step off a nearby elevator.
“He was on the floor, unconscious and gray, going in to cardiac arrest,” said Donnellan, 38, of Westerleigh, in a recent interview with the Advance.
The women performed CPR on Wasson, and with the help of off-duty paramedic Robert Lederman -- who also happened to be at the game that night -- applied one shock with a defibrillator. The FDNY soon arrived, as EMTs continued CPR, found a strong pulse and inserted an IV.
Wasson, a retired federal marshal, husband and father of two, was transported to a nearby hospital where he made a full recovery.
“It’s an emotion you can’t describe,” said Donnellan, who works in the cardiology department at RUMC. “It’s so exciting to see someone doing that well after seeing them in that state.”
Without any recollection of what happened that day, he was able to thank his rescuers in person at the FDNY’s Second Chance Ceremony, held recently in Brooklyn.
“The ceremony is amazing,” said Donnellan. “It’s just a feeling of pure joy, seeing his wife and children with their father. It’s beautiful.”
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©2019 Staten Island Advance, N.Y.