When a 911 call came in for a man having difficulty breathing in the parking lot of Broadway Diner on a warm, sunny afternoon, Mickey McCabe, owner of McCabe Ambulance Service, was pulling out of a gas station across the street. “I don’t normally respond to these jobs because I’m personally on oxygen,” McCabe said. “I have a 9/11 lung, so I’m on oxygen 24 hours, seven days a week. But I could see people running around the parking lot, so I went to see what’s going on.” He came across retired Jersey City detective John Kilroy lying on the ground suffering a heart attack. “I was easing his fears, telling him we’ll have him out of there in a minute,” McCabe said.
Time is of the essence
The ambulance arrived within a couple of minutes and transported Kilroy to the hospital 24 blocks away. McCabe recognized the extreme urgency; time is the most sensitive resource in rescuing a heart-attack victim.
Dr. Peter Wong, who operated on John Kilroy that day, said, “People who have those classic symptoms, like Mr. Kilroy, just know there’s something wrong. There’s a sense of impending doom, and he knew it right away that this is a pain he’s never had before.”
Heart attacks can be caused by the buildup of plaque, which consists of fat, cholesterol, and other substances, in and on the coronary artery—a disease called Atherosclerosis. When too much plaque develops, the segment of the heart that that artery supports gets damaged forever, and if the heart is damaged too much, that’s how people die, or become “cardiac cripples,” according to Wong, which makes it difficult to walk any distance. “The most effective treatment is to come to the cath [catheterization] lab as soon as possible.”
Kilroy was able to get to the lab just in time for Wong to perform an emergency angioplasty, a procedure that widens the narrowed artery by inflating a balloon inside it, forcing expansion of the artery and surrounding muscular wall to restore blood flow.
“There are three main coronary arteries, and Mr. Kilroy was a little particular because he had blockages in two out of the three,” Wong said. “But we got him into surgery and out in less than an hour. It’s really amazing.”
“I got a second chance at life.” – John Kilroy
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Recovery and reaction
More than two months later, Kilroy is in physical therapy to avoid the crippling effects that Wong described. He barely remembers the procedure, and that’s a good thing. “I remember talking to the doctor,” he said. “Then I woke up, they said, ‘you’re done it’s over.’ It’s phenomenal how quick it was.”
Kilroy recalled that afternoon: “I sat down and just ordered. Suddenly it felt like a squeezing in my chest.” He said he was having chest pains for about three weeks prior and thought it was acid reflux, until he “broke out in a really bad sweat and lost feeling in my arm. I tried to make it out to the parking lot, couldn’t make it.”
Heart attack symptoms are well recognized—shooting pains in the arm, difficulty breathing, and tightness or pain in the chest. “Up to 50 percent of people don’t feel anything,” Wong said. “And a lot of women don’t have that classic chest pain. Women often have different pains—back pain, jaw pain, and even tooth pain. The typical thing you see on TV where people have crushing chest pain is typically described in men only.”
Kilroy’s health was adversely affected by his lifestyle. He was doing all the things you should not do when trying to avoid a heart attack. “He was an active smoker, he was very sedentary,” and eating unhealthy food, Wong said. Kilroy admits as much. “I quit smoking, and I’m trying to eat more healthfully,” he said. He calls Mickey McCabe his “guardian angel” and says he owes his life to the doctors at Bayonne Medical Center. He said, “I got a second chance at life.”
Rory Pasquariello may be reached at roryp@hudsonreporter.com.