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Heart attack survivor meets security guard who saved him
A Houston man suffered a heart attack in a parking lot. A Memorial Hermann security guard who was patrolling the lot saw the man and saved his life. FOX 26's Melissa Wilson was there when they reunited.
A man in Cypress got to meet his hero. We caught up with them at their reunion, after the security guard at Memorial Hermann helped save his life.
"I still don't know what to say, thank you so much," exclaims Sam Oh to Officer Puneet Dhillon at Memorial Hermann.
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It all started in the parking lot on the Cypress campus of Memorial Hermann on January 7.
"I was pulling into work, and I started having some chest pain and not feeling very well, and so as I pulled into my parking spot, I was wondering, maybe this will go away. So, I got out and I had to get something out of the back of my car and so, I opened the hatch. At that point, I started losing consciousness and so I kind of collapsed into the back of my SUV. I think part of my body was still out of my car and the rest of me was inside," explains Sam.
Security Officer Dhillon was patrolling the parking lot when he witnessed the unusual sight.
"As I came close to the car, I realized that there was no movement because his feet, knees below, were outside the car. I stepped out of the car, and I look at him and I find that he's almost in a semi-unconscious state has some saliva on the left side of his mouth. That immediately got me concerned. And the first thing I did was to check his chest touch his chest to see if he was breathing or would have commenced the CPR straightaway. And he was breathing. And then the next question I asked him, if he was okay, he didn't answer," remembers Officer Dhillon.
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Sam was able to mutter the word "chest" and remembers wanting to survive to make it home to his precious family, but he had his doubts.
"As I was lying there, I didn't know if I was going to make it much longer," states Sam.
But Officer Dhillon jumped into action!
"I immediately radioed my supervisor. I told her that we have a gentleman who's passed out in the car and needs medical attention immediately. And I put down my radio, took out my personal cell phone and immediately dialed 911," says the officer.
Even though they were in the hospital parking lot, it took paramedics to safely deliver Sam around the building to the emergency room.
"The paramedics got into action. They put him on the stretcher, took him inside the ambulance. And after doing the initial EKG, the paramedic informed us he was undergoing a heart attack, and they were able to evacuate him immediately to our emergency department," states Officer Dhillon.
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Then, a medical team was ready to take the next step to save Sam's life.
"My cardiologist went in and he put in a couple of stents - using a device called an Impella. Within an hour or two, I was in the ICU stabilized," says Sam.
The Impella is the world's smallest heart pump, to maintain his blood flow during the stent placement.
Sam can't be more thankful for his team of lifesavers at Memorial Hermann.
"What could have happened, what might have happened to me, had Officer Dhillon not paid attention. And so one of the things that I took away from this was that just one small thing, which is one act of paying attention to something that maybe doesn't look right or doesn't feel right, saved my life and kept me with my family and my kids and my wife. And so I'm going to be forever grateful to Officer Dhillon for paying attention," says an appreciative Sam.
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His hero is humble about it all.
"I think it was the right thing to do and I just say that I was at the right place at the right time," states Officer Dhillon.
He says he was trained at Memorial Hermann about situations like this and realized he needed to give him assurance and the quickest help possible. It worked, and now Sam has a whole new lease on life.
For more information and warning signs of a heart attack, click here.