Former 5Towner saves Merrick man with CPR

A woman screamed. Her 58-year-old husband lay before her on the hard floor. His breathing and circulation had stopped, and he was quickly turning blue.

He was, in effect, dead.

Dr. Bruce Decter of Great Neck, who grew up in North Woodmere, ran to the Merrick couple, who only moments earlier had been awaiting an El Al flight to Israel in John F. Kennedy International Airport’s Terminal 4. Decter, a cardiologist, happened to be at the airport, dropping off his 20-year-old stepdaughter, Daniella Forman, for the same flight.

It was near 11:50 p.m. on Jan. 5.

Decter, 47, took 30 seconds to assess the man’s condition. He assumed that the man had suffered either an arrhythmia, in which the heart skipped a beat, or a massive heart attack. “There was something terribly wrong,” Decter recounted later.

He ripped open the man’s shirt, called for a Port Authority police officer to run and get an automated external defibrillator, and immediately began giving the man cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

According to studies, the chance of reviving a person with CPR outside a hospital is 4 percent, a statistic that Decter knew all too well.

For two and a half minutes, Decter pumped the man’s chest with his hands folded one on top of the other, checking for a pulse every 30 seconds. A dentist relieved Decter briefly before he started chest compressions again.

The compressions kept oxygenated blood circulating through the man’s body and brain. Then, suddenly, his color started to return to a light pink. Decter felt a weak pulse. By the time the AED arrived, the man was sitting up and talking.

“The first thing he asked me was, ‘Can I still go on my flight?” Decter said.

The answer, obviously, was no. The man was sent to St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn for treatment. Decter visited him in there, where he underwent surgery to repair widespread coronary disease.

Decter said he could not divulge the man’s name because of doctor-patient confidentiality rules.

“The key to reviving someone is getting there early,” he said, noting that he was by the man’s side within 15 seconds of his wife’s scream.