Thanks to the quick action from an off-duty police officer and fire captain from Westchester, a retired firefighter who collapsed after a basketball game is on the mend.
The incident happened on Monday, March 6, when retired New York City Fire Department fire marshal commander CJ Kanelopoulos, age 49, came off the court at St. Joseph’s Men’s Club in Bronxville and passed out while drinking water.
According to the Yonkers Uniformed Fire Officers Association, Bedford Police Officer Tom Keane, Yonkers Fire Captain Steve Lawlor, and retired FDNY firefighter Bob Peterson, who had been playing basketball as well, then rushed to Kanelopoulos’s side to give him medical aid.
After seeing the grave condition that he was in, the men used an AED to try and resuscitate Kanelopoulos, who had stopped breathing.
“Bobby hit the button, CJ’s whole body jumped, and while we were doing compressions Bronxville PD came in,” said Keane, who added, “Around that time, you could actually see CJ starting to come out of it.”
Local police officers and EMS workers soon arrived and also began to provide aid to Kanelopoulos, who started to regain consciousness and even tried to take off the oxygen mask that had been placed on his face.
“I apparently passed out…and the next thing I remember is them wheeling me around in the stretcher, and I was like ‘OK, OK, I’m good, I’m good, I just passed out,'” Kanelopoulos said.
He continued, “They were like, ‘No, you didn’t pass out, we had to do CPR and shock you,’ because I was trying to get up.”
After a brief hospital stay, Kanelopoulos was discharged on Thursday, March 9 after having two stents placed in him when doctors found him to have 90 and 95 percent blockages in two arteries.
Lawlor said that similar incidents underscore the importance of having AEDs in public places.
“The main thing we really need to stress is that we need to have that AED on the wall,” he said, adding, “Half of the guys there said they didn’t even know where it was or what it was. It was really what saved him.”
As Kanelopoulos recovers, he is making sure to express thanks to the men who saved him.
“Thank God that those guys were with me and they helped me out and saved my life,” he said, adding, “I owe them a gratitude that can never be repaid.”
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