5Towns native saves Merrick man

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 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.

“I didn’t even think about it,” Decter said of his effort to revive the man. “My instinct was that I saw someone in distress, I’m going to help … If he didn’t get CPR when he did, right away, he wouldn’t have lived.”

Decter graduated from Lawrence High School in 1980 and went on to earn his undergraduate degree from Brandeis University in Boston in 1984 and his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia in 1988.

He is now in a practice with four other cardiologists in New Hyde Park and is affiliated with six hospitals. Rated among Nassau County’s top cardiologists in patient surveys, he is a non-invasive diagnostician who assesses patients’ heart conditions before sending them to specialists for treatment.

“I love what I do,” Decter said. “I’ve been very lucky. I really love being a cardiologist. I get a lot of satisfaction from helping people, my patients.”

And they certainly appreciate him. His office is full of small gifts from his patients. Tucked on a top shelf are a trophy and a photo of a racehorse after it won at Belmont Park. A patient of Decter’s, a horse breeder, was so thankful for the care he received that he named the horse Dr. Decter. When the horse was retired in Kentucky, the patient named a second horse after him, Doctor B. Decter.

“It’s pretty cool,” Decter said.

The Discovery Channel’s “Mystery ER” featured a case of Decter’s in which a patient had been misdiagnosed with a heart condition. After assessing the man, Decter determined that he was suffering not from a heart problem, but rather from a metabolic disorder in which his body was breaking down his own muscle. “He was literally eating away at himself,” Decter said.

Thanks to his diagnosis, the man received treatment he desperately needed, and these days he is doing fine.

The Discovery Channel aired the 15-minute episode, titled “Eating Away,” in 2008. Decter said it was “the weirdest thing” to be played by an actor, Stephen Marrero.

In his scant free time, Decter said, he enjoys bicycling, playing tennis and going to museums, in particular the Museum of Natural History and the Jewish Museum in Manhattan. Staying active and eating a healthy diet, he noted, are keys to preventing heart disease.

He also said he loves to spend time with his family — his wife, Susan, four children, Jacob, Ashley, Gabrielle and Emma, and stepchildren, Daniella and Jeremy Forman.

One of Decter’s colleagues, Dr. Eilas Bonaros, described his fellow cardiologist as “empathetic.” “He cares about his patients,” Bonaros said. “He’s not afraid to get involved, as evidenced by what he just did” at Kennedy Airport.

Decter’s brother, David Decter of Lawrence, who’s in the shipping business, said, “His actions didn’t surprise me one bit. He has always been attentive to all people around him … I give him a tremendous amount of credit for stepping in.”

Decter said he was “elated and excited” that he was able to revive a man with only his two hands. It was, he noted, the first time that he had saved a person outside a hospital without the aid of the medical equipment that he is so accustomed to.

“I was astounded,” he said. “I do this on a daily basis, but it was never this dramatic.”