Lynbrook man saved in time for holidays

Avid bowler Sal Panzarella had a heart attack on Nov. 8, but was saved by nurses at Mercy Hospital.

Panzarella, a Lynbrook resident got to work at 5 a.m. and by 7, he began to feel a tingling sensation in his shoulders. By 9 a.m., the feeling traveled down to his fingers. He waited for his co-worker to arrive at 9:45 a.m. to cover his shift at his job in Brooklyn.

After driving himself home, his wife, Cynthia, immediately drove Sal to Mercy Hospital’s Emergency Department. In the ED, the triage nurse recognized that Sal could be having a heart attack and performed an EKG within four minutes of his arrival. The team at Mercy activated a Code STEMI, which ensured that Panzarella received life-saving intervention as soon as possible.

In less than 20 minutes, Panzarella was in the St. Francis Hospital Cardiac Catheterization Lab at Mercy Hospital where a team of doctors and nurses were ready for his arrival. Panzarella received a balloon angioplasty that cleared the blockage in his artery and reestablished blood flow to his heart. His door-to-balloon time of 38 minutes beats the national requirement by over 50 minutes.

“Time is muscle,” cardiologist Dr. Sidharth Yadav said. “Every minute that goes by is more heart muscle that is dying.” The fast door-to-balloon time saved Panzarella a lot of muscle, according to Yadav.

Panzarella considers himself relatively healthy and active. He wants people to know that having a heart attack does not feel the same for everyone. “I wasn’t experiencing crushing chest pain so I wasn’t too worried,” Panzarella said. “Knowing what I know now, I’m beyond thankful for my wife for taking me to Mercy and to the staff for ultimately saving my life.”

Panzarella met with the nurses that saved his life on Nov. 22 at Mercy Hospital. He thanked them and expressed a lot of gratitude. The nurses surprised Panzarella with a blow-up bowling set, as he could not bowl during his recovery.

— Ben Fiebert