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.

"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.