Fireman saves heart attack busker who collapses in the snow
FIREFIGHTERS saved the life of a busker in East London who collapsed in the snow opposite their fire station. They just happened to be looking out of the window when they spotted him on the pavement at the bus-stop opposite Poplar fire station and used a portable heart-machine to revive him
By Mike Brooke
FIREFIGHTERS saved the life of a busker in East London who collapsed in the snow opposite their fire station.
They just happened to be looking out of the window when they spotted him on the pavement.
The middle-age busker was carrying a guitar when he collapsed at 1am on Monday at the bus-stop opposite Poplar fire station in East India Dock Road.
Fire crew manager Mick McCarthy, 43, rushed over with a portable heart resuscitator from a fire-tender.
"I took our defibrillator over and got him into a recovery position to revive him," he told the East London Advertiser.
"We just happen to see him by chance while looking out the window and found him unconscious at the bus-stop.
Most Read
- 1 Revealed: Your favourite fish and chip shop in east London
- 2 RideLondon 2022: East and central London roads among 100 miles of closures
- 3 Maskless passengers on London trains and buses fined 4,000 times
- 4 Tower Hamlets neighbours must 'temporarily leave' and pay £85k for building repairs
- 5 Appeal: CCTV image released after mosque attacked with bottles
- 6 Covid: Weekly admissions halve as patient counts drop to July 2021 levels
- 7 Police looking for missing man last seen leaving hospital
- 8 Whitechapel dessert shop fined over £5,000 for dumping waste
- 9 Girl, 17, held on suspicion of terrorism offences after east London arrest
- 10 Call for pictures of your Platinum Jubilee street parties and celebrations
"If he had collapsed somewhere else and not opposite the fire station, we might not have got to him in time."
Mick and a woman officer from a passing police patrol which stopped at the scene tested the man's pulse and found he had stopped breathing before giving him two electro-shocks with the defibrillator. Ambulance paramedics arriving minutes later gave him two more electro-shocks and he started breathing again.
The man was taken to the London Chest Hospital at Bethnal Green and was still in intensive therapy this week.