AHA Staffer Lives the Mission, Saves Grandmother’s Life

Heartsaver Hero Awards are a special honor we give people who’ve used their CPR training to save a life. I’m always inspired by our Heartsaver Heroes, and it made me extra proud to recently recognize our own Mayur Patel, account manager for MD/DC/VA, with this special honor for saving his grandmother. Nothing makes me happier than to learn of how our own AHA family is living the mission.

Mayur had finished a day of account visits and had just gotten home to his parents’ house in Clarksburg, MD, where he was visiting for the weekend. He was upstairs when he heard very uncharacteristic noises and loud voices occurring downstairs, and realized something was wrong.

He went downstairs and found his parents around his paternal grandmother, who was on the couch. She was not moving and had poor color. The other three people in the room thought she had just passed out and were trying to wake her up.

Mayur recognized quickly it was worse than the others thought, and took charge of the situation. He told them to call 911 and positioned her to perform CPR.

“It was surreal,” Mayur said. “I really didn’t have to think; the training came back to me.”

He performed CPR for about eight minutes (but it seemed much longer than that) until EMS professionals from the local fire department arrived. The professionals took over for him and performed the pitcrew approach, according to Mayur. Before arriving at the local hospital his grandmother was shocked three times, and had a pulse on arrival, despite re-arresting a couple of times.

“She was in a coma and sedated about two day days, then she slowly woke up and had a couple-day period of more alertness and memory improvement,” Mayur said.

Thankfully, Mayur’s grandmother is now home with some needed supportive care, but is improving in strength and memory every day.

Mayur said his role at AHA and his CPR training made all the difference in helping save his grandmother’s life. While he’s happy she’s on the road to recovery and was glad he was at the right place at the right time, he hopes he never has to relive this experience again. We hope so too.

As we celebrate EMS Appreciation Week, I would like to recognize Mayur and the Montgomery County Fire Dept. for living the AHA mission and using your CPR training to save a life! We applaud your courage!

Happy EMS Appreciation Week!